


Drive To Nowhere

by Damned_Writers



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Allusions to Physical Abuse, Amanda LaRusso has feelings about things, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Insomnia, Introspection, M/M, Mentions of various other Cobra Kai characters, Miyagi's ghost could be hanging around we don't know, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Relapse, Season 3 compliant, Specific mentions of Silver and Kreese, This fic is eventually a lot softer than the tags suggest, This is not a cheating fic technically, Trauma, as canon compliant as I can get, doing the hard work of loving yourself, repressed bisexuals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/pseuds/Damned_Writers
Summary: 1985: If neither of them wanted to go home… he opened his mouth, about to say it - I’m going for a drive. Wanna come?
Relationships: Amanda LaRusso/Daniel LaRusso, Amanda LaRusso/Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Past Ali Mills/Daniel LaRusso
Comments: 36
Kudos: 60





	1. Seven Wonders

**Author's Note:**

> I was not going to post the first chapter of this at 5am, but the downstairs are currently high out of their minds and have been partying for eight hours, so now's as good a time as any! Next chapters are pretty much done, so I'll be uploading them hopefully over the next few days.
> 
> This basically started with me thinking about a few things:  
> 1\. What could a hypothetical conversation between Daniel and Johnny navigating their relationship into the romantic look like if I tried to keep everything as canon as possible  
> 2\. Did Johnny and Daniel really never interact a single time between the tournament and the car-dealership 34 years later?  
> 3\. My general feelings about these messed up kids now messed up adults needing a longer-form fic (which is still, essentially, incredibly contained to two nights).  
> 4\. Justice for Amanda actually getting to feel real frustration about how Daniel's wild past has blasted down the doors of their lives and he never properly shared with her just how affected by it all he was (+ my personal HC that he hasn't talked about Silver at all!)
> 
> My playlist for this fic has given me emotions.

So it's hard to find  
Someone with that kind of intensity  
You touched my hand I played it cool  
And you reached out your hand for me

But if our paths never cross  
Well, no, I'm not sorry, but

If I live to see the seven wonders  
I'll make a path to the rainbow's end  
I'll never live to match the beauty again

_Seven Wonders // Fleetwood Mac_

__________________________________________

**Now**

With everything he had to think about these days it had become harder and harder to get any sleep. Enough so that Amanda was beginning to come up with suggestions about how to “get a handle on it.” Always had an action plan. He loved that about her, their relationship the total inverse of the kind of person he became whenever around Johnny.

They hadn’t settled on any one solution – he’d had insomnia in the past, but he’d become better through meditation and structural and financial stability at tricking himself, until it became practically easy. He wasn’t keen on pills or therapy ( _therapy for_ what _, I know why this is happening,_ he’d told her and changed the subject as quickly as possible), which left… not sleeping.

More specifically occasionally slipping out of bed in the middle of the night while Amanda slept to change into his oldest work-out clothes and a thin hoodie, driving to the dojo and going through kata to calm himself down – he didn’t know why he needed to do them there and not just in the exercise room at the back of the house. Something about knowing that this motion had been done a thousand times before in this space with Miyagi correcting his stance, imagining his gentle voice calming him down.

He missed Miyagi more and more with every passing madness that had been added to his life in the past year and a half since Johnny had popped up out of nowhere like a belligerent poltergeist. And currently Johnny wasn’t even a problem – or, not the biggest problem. He was more like a _concern._ Daniel was concerned for him. There was Robby and Kreese, and Daniel’s own particular nightmare in the shape of Terry Silver returned into his life, and in the midst of all that Johnny had stopped drinking, because Daniel had said if they were going to teach together he couldn’t bring that to the classes . He’d carefully skirted the word _addiction,_ but the fight (verbal, they weren’t always on the verge of punching each other… not always) was pretty vicious nonetheless.

He’d stopped four times so far, twice lasting a few days, and once a full two weeks before he’d missed a day of training and Miguel had found him passed out in his unlocked apartment. Johnny hadn’t said so, but Daniel knew it was that last incident that had informed his current – and most long-lasting – sobriety.

 _And he was doing well,_ Daniel thought as he parked in the driveway. He was pretty surly about it sometimes, which translated to pushing the kids harder during practise and pulling no punches when sparring against Daniel, but he looked good. Sometimes he even seemed lighter, more open, more affectionate. Daniel had been against his methods ( _c_ _old turkey without any kind of AA, come on Johnny…)_ , but he had to give it to him, they were paying off, in that roundabout Johnny-Lawrence-has-a-plan kinda way -

The dojo door was wide open and Daniel had a moment of panic, remembering the devastation the last time a bunch of intruders had gotten inside. He rushed in, kicking himself for not taking proper care, but it turned out there was nothing to worry about – well… nothing apart from the eternal worry that was Johnny Lawrence slumped in a corner with enough empty Coors surrounding him for Daniel to put together a picture of what had happened.

He thought back, trying to to figure out what had made him fall off the wagon when he’d been sober for a good while now. No particular reason came to mind, but then again, addiction didn’t work like that. Daniel had been planning some kind of small celebration – just the two of them and Amanda – once he came up on three months. He’d have to shelve that one, save the gift he’d bought for some future event, do some crisis management, start again…

He sighed and knelt down next to him, remembering Miyagi on the night he’d gotten drunk when they’d been training for the first tournament – _we regretfully inform you… no doctor…_ Johnny wasn’t Miyagi. But sometimes there was a flash of something almost Miyagi-ish about him, like if he’d gotten the chance he might’ve been a more natural fit for some of those lessons about balance that Daniel had never quite internalised. Too hot-headed. Always floating away, Miyagi told him.

Johnny’s balance was clearly fucked again. But it had been for more years than it’d been stable – if it ever had been to begin with. Daniel had prepared for this eventuality, made himself promise not to be disappointed or patronising, although the expectation that Johnny wouldn’t make it in the first place wasn’t quite the magnanimousness he wished he could’ve felt either. Maybe Johnny had just responded to that expectation.

“Johnny,” he said, quietly, kneeling down next to him and prying a cradled mostly-finished bottle out of his hands.

Johnny blinked sluggishly, then jerked awake, the drunk part of him at war with his hyper-vigilance. The latter won over, cornered animal look sharpening his blue eyes out, not as icy as when he was fully alert, but better than Daniel had worried.

“What’re you doing here?” asked Johnny, only a little slurred.

“What am _I_ doing here?”

“Yeah, it’s… what time izzit?” He paled. “Shit, it’s not…”

“No, it’s still dark out. But what would you’ve done if the kids had seen you like this? And beer in the dojo, it’s…” Magnanimous. They could figure this out. “Johnny…”

He reached out to touch his shoulder and at least Johnny wasn’t flinching away, but he frowned when he said his name, like he resented the softness of it in Daniel’s mouth.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, we made a deal, I fucked it up.” He pushed away Daniel’s hand and struggled halfway to standing, waving away further attempts to help stabilize him, - “I’ve got it,” he muttered, straightening and looking around at the bottles, like he was aware he ought to do something, but not quite together enough to actually formulate a plan of action.

“Doesn’t look like you’ve got it,” said Daniel, not unkindly. There probably wasn’t a word that could’ve been uttered that would’ve been the right one in this situation, but from the way Johnny stiffened and stared at him, Daniel’s perpetual penchant for straying to the wrong end of the spectrum of de-escalation had struck again.

There was a moment where Daniel wondered if he should be getting into fighting position, but he resisted the urge – not everything he and Johnny did these days needed to end in a fight. Hell, most of the time they got on surprisingly well, functioning with just the right push and pull, as if they’d been friends their whole lives and not rivals.

For some reason Amanda had been the least surprised when he’d told her this one day – _yeah, you’re practically the same person,_ she’d half-joked, which had sparked something or other in Daniel. Panic or revelation or something.

He didn’t raise his fists and Johnny didn’t raise his fists, so on the whole it was practically a win for this interaction, if they ignored Johnny’s relapse and the fact that the room practically vibrated with tension.

“I’ve got it,” repeated Johnny. “So you can… do whatever you came here to do, I’ll… go.”

“Are you gonna drink again?” asked Daniel. He’d been accused before – numerous times – of being confrontational, but he wasn’t doing it on purpose. Even though he could practically see the metaphorical straws on Johnny’s back threatening to break, Daniel would continue to pile them on in an effort to solve a problem, one at a time, trusting that Johnny could take it.

The back creaked, but held firm. Maybe dealing with this here and now was the right decision after all.

“No,” said Johnny, tersely.

“Alright, is there anything… I can do to help you with that?”

Johnny huffed out a sarcastic laugh. “Like what, put one of those little spy chips in me?”

As important as Daniel felt it was to be up to date with the century, maybe letting Johnny find out they were living in an age of surveillance had been a mistake.

“No, come on, I mean… you think about going to those AA meetings I told you about?”

“… No, I’m not gonna – I was handling things fine on my own, okay? I just wanted a drink somewhere private-”

“Wait,” said Daniel, suddenly worried. “Have you been drinking this whole time?”

He’d said the wrong thing again, sending Johnny into the defensive, when all he was trying to do was help. _If we’re practically the same person, then why am I fucking up so badly?_

“You think I’ve been lying to you?”

“No-”

Johnny had that caged tiger about to pounce hunched-overness about him, reminding Daniel as he sometimes did that he was broad and muscled and despite Daniel’s ability to avoid a punch and give as good as he got, sheer power would always belong to Johnny. If he lashed out without warning it could go either way. _Relax,_ he told himself. _Breathe._ Johnny wouldn’t be able to land a hit like this. He’d be slow and unfocused. All Daniel had to do was wait until he exhausted himself -

But the attack never came. Johnny seemed to lose all the fight in him at once, a rare look of defeat on his face. “You don’t fucking get it.” he said quietly.

Daniel moved closer again. “Get what, I don’t-”

“All of it!” He stepped back and swung an arm out like he was blocking a punch and knocked over an empty bottle, wincing at the _clink_. Daniel stopped, palms up to show he didn’t mean any harm. He hadn’t had to tread this carefully around Johnny in awhile – the structure of training at the dojo and between himself and Carmen making sure he ate enough healthy meals practically domesticated him. But the man beneath that – more years on the bottle than off it, too used to giving up to believe that anyone trusted him to pull through – was only a scratch of the surface away.

Johnny had that look in his eye like if he didn’t punch someone he might cry. Daniel had noticed it before and never pointed it out to him, knowing he hated the weakness of it, but he wanted to… he wanted to do something. Hold him (that’d be a sure-fire way to start said fight). Tell him it was okay (another good way to start one). Rewind the clock as far as he could. However far back in their story it took to fix things. Wondering if that moment in time had ever even existed in the first place or if they’d both already been too far gone by the time they’d met to change anything for either of them.

“You ever want something so bad it hurts?” said Johnny in a voice that made Daniel feel like he was intruding on something private. “And you’re so sure you won’t get it, so your brain tells you the only thing to do is break it on purpose? That’s my whole life, man. Wanted it so badly… wanted…” he swallowed down whatever he’d been about to say, shaking his head softly. “And I broke all of it. And it’s my fault and there’s nothing to do about it. I can be better now or whatever, but that was it, my whole life. And whining about it ain’t gonna fix it, it’s just gonna make people look at you like-” he looked back. “Yeah, like that,” he finished, nodding to Daniel.

“That’s not fucking fair-”

“Yeah, well, life’s not fair,” said Johnny and leaned down to pick up the bottle that Daniel had extricated from him earlier.

Daniel snatched it out of his hand. “That’s the kind of optimism that got you like this in the first place!” he countered heatedly, suddenly annoyed at all the tip-toeing he was doing around him, as if Johnny wasn’t a full-grown man who could take responsibility for his actions. If Johnny’d been seeing pity of any kind in his face before, he sure wasn’t now.

The crying-look was wiped from Johnny’s expression now too, replaced by that reckless anger saying _fight me, fucking do it!_

Daniel knew he oughta be the more well-adjusted one. He’d sorted himself out, trained to have balance, not to attack, only to defend. His mother hadn’t died when he was thirty-five and his father figures hadn’t abandoned or abused him. Marriage, kids, house with a decent pool. He’d fucking made it to the top, allowed into the same country club that’d excluded him when he was a kid.

But Daniel LaRusso – the kid from New Jersey, scrappy and poor and insecure and needing to prove himself as good as, even when he felt like he was nothing – he was never really going to stop haunting him, like a ghost beneath his skin. Like Johnny, he sometimes felt like the only thing he really knew how to do was to fight. Hell, maybe fighting was even more a natural response for him than for Johnny, something he was unable to rid himself of even though he couldn’t figure out the reason for it. At least Johnny was doing it because he had to. Daniel just fought.

Miyagi had known that about him, although thinking too much about that left a bitter taste in his mouth – why had he been trying to make him into something he clearly couldn’t hope to be? He’d banished that thought so many times over the years, but since Johnny’s reappearance it’d become ever more prevalent – just beneath the surface Daniel wanted Johnny to provoke him just as badly as Johnny wanted an excuse to throw a punch.

“Fuck you!” spat Johnny.

“Yeah, well, fuck you too!” - somewhere within him he heard Amanda rolling her eyes at the predictability of their relationship, over and over again regressing into insults like they weren’t adults with a lifetime of similarities that could draw them closer together, choosing to ignore them in favour of scrapping it out.

Maybe that was just their language.

Johnny threw the first punch – it was always like that, because if nothing else, Daniel had learned never to initiate. He was more cynical about the reasons for it than Miyagi had been. It wasn’t about fighting only when absolutely necessary, but about removing the guilt of being the instigator and, pragmatically, letting the enemy telegraph their moves.

It was barely fair right now. Johnny was still drunk and tired and emotional. Daniel was angry, but it was a focused, coiled anger that needed an outlet. He blocked a fist and a foot and then shifted just enough that Johnny’s next attack threw him off balance, giving Daniel the momentum to throw him to the ground – hard, Johnny’s head knocking against the mat with a loud _thud_ and immediately lifting to meet Daniel’s fist an inch from his face. He didn’t let the blow land – there was nothing satisfying about bloodying his nose or even winning. He was just trying to release the tension.

Johnny was breathing heavily, arms unrestrained. Daniel knew he could throw him over if he wanted to – was planning for it, already three moves ahead – but instead he just growled in frustration and let his head fall back against the floor. “Couldn’t even fucking do that, could you?”

Daniel dropped his hand. “Do what?”

“Hit me.”

“Think you’ve been hit enough, don’t you?” said Daniel, tone once more returned to something that might be called light-hearted if it weren’t meant so sincerely.

Johnny grunted non-committally. “You getting off me or are we gonna keep fighting?”

It took Daniel a moment to realise that he was straddling Johnny’s hips in a way that was suggestive of some intention or other. He got off with an ungainly, “uh, yeah, sorry,” before he could dwell too much on that thought – fighting, yeah… fighting was the natural conclusion to that position.

Johnny sat up as well, rolling his neck to get some of the stiffness out of it that would’ve come from curling up around a bottle at the age of fifty-three.

Neither of them bothered to stand, simply settling into an exhausted silence next to one another, arms wrapped around knees and looking ahead, like they were teenagers gazing out over the wide expanse of their futures together. That strange, heavy stillness that Daniel remembered from being young, where suddenly the world was too big, with too many unknowns, and hugging your knees with someone who was feeling the same, indescribable anxiety was enough to silence it for a moment.

“I’m not like you, you know,” said Johnny suddenly.

Daniel looked at him. Funny he should say that, after everything Daniel had been thinking about how much they were the same. This time he stayed silent though, thinking that he’d tried words and they’d been a fucking disaster.

Johnny continued: “You’ve got all that kata and balance shit and married to _the_ hottest, smartest woman in the valley, and a charming smile and-”

“Charming?” smirked Daniel, unable to help himself, despite the resolution he’d just made.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“No, no, keep going, charming smile, and?”

Johnny seemed conflicted. “You know. Other stuff.” There was something lovely about his face like this and Daniel remembered that he’d been pretty back in highschool too. A pretty, masculine jerk. He remembered every time he’d seen him leading up to the tournament like the images were seared into his brain, and every time he’d seen him after, before Johnny had all but disappeared from his life like he’d never existed in the first place. Even his two-time All-Valley Championship – tied with Daniel – had been forgotten by everyone. Maybe that was what Johnny had wanted, to become someone who’d never really existed. But Daniel hadn’t forgotten… there was something indelible about Johnny Lawrence.

Like he was as much under Daniel’s skin as Daniel himself was.

Johnny sighed and for a second he looked so young and unsure that Daniel wondered if they really had rewound the clock – he remembered suddenly another Johnny, some thirty-odd years ago, looking dishevelled and lost like this. Funny that memory should come back to him now, when he hadn’t thought about it in years – but then he spoke and it was the voice of a man with a whole lifetime on his shoulders: “Take away all my bullshit and what kinda Johnny Lawrence is even left?”

Daniel didn’t know what to answer to that, which was why he leaned in and kissed him instead. _Daniel LaRusso, the kid from New Jersey, scrappy and out to prove himself and always a little bit aware of the prettiness that Johnny had tried to hide_ _beneath the anger_ _from day one, always wondering…_ _even if he couldn’t admit it to anyone…_ _what_ _kissing him_ _felt like…_

**1985**

Johnny disappeared after Christmas. There had been a sense of impending doom hanging over Daniel’s head, wondering if despite everything he and the others would gang up on him in some alleyway, but it was like they’d had their strings cut without the dojo to keep them together.

Coming back to school had been the crux of that anxiety, a knot building in his chest that spread through his whole body, making his limbs heavy and unresponsive, but the other four had steered clear and Johnny was nowhere to be seen. So the knot had loosened, bit by bit. The tournament really had been the end of things it seemed. Cobra Kai was finished, Daniel and Ali were going steady, things were looking up.

The worry returned after he noticed Johnny’s absence lengthening into its second week. He wasn’t actually going to go and ask any of the other guys where he’d gone to, but he couldn’t rid himself of the image of Kreese choking him out, before Miyagi had intervened. Maybe he’d gotten seriously hurt. Or maybe he just wasn’t able to face the defeat – although that rang false. Johnny had handed him the trophy after all, he’d been ready to let go of whatever had been going on between them, at least in that moment.

“Where’re you looking to?” asked Ali half-jokingly one day, not long after his cast had been replaced by a brace.

“Huh?” asked Daniel, spotting Bobby and Dutch arriving for the day – sans Johnny once more.

“Haven’t gotten you to focus all week,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, wanting to check if he arrived with Jimmy or Tommy.

She nudged him and he momentarily snapped out of it. “What?”

“What’s up?” she asked.

He hadn’t asked her, figuring she wasn’t keeping in touch with him, but… “Just wondering where Johnny’s got to.”

Ali frowned. “Why, expecting trouble?”

“Trouble…” Daniel repeated, once more distracted as Jimmy and Tommy rode up together. Just them. “Maybe…”

She nudged him again. “I was telling you about Susan's birthday.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” he said and turned back to give Ali his full attention, ignoring the tiny bit of his mind that continued to niggle. It didn’t matter where Johnny Lawrence had gone to and if he never came back, well, it made no difference to Daniel. He was a footnote in his story.

The party was a few weeks later, the kind of thing Daniel couldn’t imagine he would’ve ever gotten invited to at the beginning of the school year. But he was practically cool now – so Ali’s friends still didn’t like him and she was basically hiding him from her parents at this point, so what? He had a few casual friends through Freddy, who’d welcomed him back now he was the guy who’d kicked Cobra Kai's ass and was dating a rich girl, which gave them access to parties like these. At least he didn’t have to stand alone by the snacks. And Ali was with him, which was still the most unbelievable part of his whole time in the valley so far.

It was an Encino house and the parents were away, which meant that although it was considered cold by (laughably tame) Californian standards, the pool was partially in use by teens who would only be taking off more clothes as the night wore on. Daniel didn’t particularly want to be roped into taking his shirt off, so he stayed away and luckily Ali didn’t seem tempted either.

Even with his new-found acceptance, with Ali, with the booze, there was something unenjoyable about it all. The tasteless richness of his surroundings that showed how clearly he didn’t belong there, the ever-growing drunkenness that he didn’t particularly want to participate in, the way his leg twinged. He couldn’t dance either. Stupid brace.

He kept on a pasted smile and even let Ali pull on his arms in a half-hearted rhythmical back and forth, but as soon as she started to talk with some of her friends he muttered an excuse and drifted outside for some air.

“That’s better,” he breathed out, only for his momentary bliss to be punctured by an enthusiastic couple making out against a tree. _Oh great_ , he thought. _Just my luck._ To go back in or try to get past them to find an emptier spot? Neither seemed like a great idea.

In the effort not to stare it took a moment for Daniel to realise that one of the two face-eaters was familiar to him – the blond hair gave it away first, but he’d spent so long looking for him that Daniel couldn’t quite believe he’d stumble into Johnny Lawrence like this, pushed against a tree and kept there while his partner seemingly tried to eat him alive. Daniel didn’t recognise her, but this party was mostly consistent of people he didn’t know. She seemed pretty from what he could see – which was, in all fairness, not much. Most of her was busy being pressed as tightly to Johnny at every point she could manage, lips firmly affixed to lips and hands roaming.

Johnny didn’t seem to mind her being the aggressor and was giving as good as he got and, from the sounds of her, he was giving pretty well. There was something hypnotising about these two tall, beautiful people so entwined into one another that the sounds of the party, the night, and Daniel staring at them might not even exist.

Suddenly Johnny’s eyes found his like he’d sensed someone gawping and Daniel froze. There was a spark of something, like a challenge being met, and Johnny extricated himself for a moment from the girl to shoot him a proper little smirk, before he got back to work, hands wandering further down her lower back, lips moving towards her neck – keeping his gaze on Daniel.

Daniel’s mouth went dry and it took him far too long to realise that staring at Johnny Lawrence gnawing on a girl outside a party that he was at with his girlfriend wasn’t the kind of behaviour that could be explained. Like he was emerging after holding his breath under water for too long, he extricated himself from the scene, finding that once he wasn’t looking he couldn’t get back inside fast enough.

“Show-off,” he grumbled to himself, more angry that he couldn’t seem to get rid of the image than at Johnny himself. Looking right at him. His stupidly blue eyes still so expressive even when they were covered in shadows, fixed on him like a taunt. She really seemed to like it too. Whatever he was doing with his lips and hands…

He was so busy replaying it over and over that he didn’t notice Ali until he’d walked right into her. She smiled widely – that lovely smile that he realised once upon a time had been directed in Johnny’s direction – and said: “Hey, was wondering where’d you disappeared off to.”

“Oh… I just… I was getting some air.” And like an idiot, he decided to add: “I saw Johnny.”

The smile was still there – a little less now, a little exasperated. “Why is it that ever since school started up again you’ve been looking out for Johnny everywhere?”

“What? No I haven’t.”

“Are you trying to pick another fight?”

“ _No,_ definitely – _definitely_ not.” At her arched eyebrow, he added: “Promise. I just thought it was weird that he disappeared, was all.”

“Maybe he needed to lick his wounds before he came back.”

“Yeah…” said Daniel, thinking back on the way Kreese had choked him. Maybe the marks had needed to go down first. Johnny had been wearing a jacket (not his red one) outside, but his neck had been bare. Daniel didn’t remember seeing any bruises, but he’d been too busy looking at his hands and stupid, _stupid_ bright eyes. And the sounds he and that girl had been making…

“Is Johnny a better kisser than me?” he asked before he could stop himself.

The smile was definitely gone now, replaced by the expression of someone on a ride they really didn’t want to be on. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t, I just… I was wondering you know. Any pointers…”

“So you wanna know… if Johnny’s a good kisser? Because you want to one-up him?” She was clearly both confused and entirely unimpressed. God, he’d walked right into this one. Why’d he bring up Johnny in the first place? Why was he still thinking about it?

He struggled for a moment, then opened his mouth, hoping whatever came out would save him from the grave he’d been busy digging: “No, you know, I just thought, he seems like the kinda guy who’d be good at that,-” oh _fuck,_ _“-_ and I’ve never had a girlfriend before,-” better, “- just wanted to make sure I hold up to the kind of standards you’re used to.” He tried to think back on that sentence. It seemed acceptable enough, on the whole, even though it had opened with a confession that he had, at least once, thought about Johnny’s kissing abilities.

Ali’s face journey had ended on something inscrutable, like she was on a completely different page of the book than he was, but then she shrugged and whatever thought she’d been having was replaced by a fond headshake. “You’re doing fine. A bit enthusiastic,” she added, which managed to distract Daniel entirely from Johnny and his lips for another minute, while he asked for clarification on whether _enthusiastic_ was a positive in this context, which she only managed to shut him up about by actually, finally kissing him.

It was all going really well, considering how little he’d been enjoying the night so far, but then his fucking leg had to act up and he winced against her mouth.

She pulled away. “Does it hurt?”

“It’s alright,” he said, not because he was trying to be brave, but simply because he was seventeen and a girl who really had no business punching this far below her weight had her hands fixed to his hips and her taste left over on his tongue. His leg wasn’t getting in the way of this, no damn way.

Sadly, Ali really was too nice. “We can drive home. I don’t have to stay.”

And because he was too nice as well, he sighed and said: “No, you stay. It’s for your best friend, I want you to stay, I’ll get home okay.”

“And we’ll have a night out soon, just the two of us,” she promised.

That helped a bit. “Yeah, I’ll take you dancing when I can stand properly.”

A mischievous glint crossed her eyes. “Johnny never took me dancing.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. So you’re definitely winning, in case you were wondering.”

“Not that I care about that,” he said quickly, “I don’t care, but, yeah, good to know, thanks for letting me know-” she silenced his babble with another kiss, short and sweet.

“Get home safe.”

It was only when he was outside that he remembered that the thing that had chased him back indoors in the first place had been the opening of a scene, the conclusion of which just so happened to culminate right as he exited the door again.

Johnny and the girl were arguing. Of course they were. He said something – clearly defensive – to which she responded by slapping him hard in the face and stalking off to her car. As the sound of it rang out, Daniel couldn’t help an audible “ _ooh,”_ that had the unfortunate implication of drawing Johnny’s attention from the girl and straight to him.

“What the fuck do you want?” he snarled, heading his way.

There was no way Daniel was going to win this one, he thought, stumbling back over that still-hurting traitor leg of his – “nothing, man, hey… I don’t wanna fight.”

That stopped Johnny. For a moment he even seemed apologetic, but then he scoffed, looking him up and down. “How’s the leg, LaRusso?”

“Good. How’s the nose?”

Johnny shrugged and held a hand to his cheek, looking back to where the girl had gotten into the car now and begun to drive off. He rubbed it absently. It was bright red, just like his kiss-swollen lips. Now that Daniel was closer to him and he was bathed in the porch-lights, he couldn’t help but pay attention to those details – like his ruffled shirt and hair and the oddly defeated slump of his shoulders.

“You oughta be careful, you know,” said Daniel. “Keep getting hit like that, people might think you enjoy it.”

“Maybe I do,” said Johnny, not looking back to him. It would’ve been a joke, except he said it in a way that seemed almost… sad.

Daniel didn’t know what to do with a sad Johnny. Most of his brain was already outta here, with a plan to take his car and drive off somewhere for the rest of the night. He wasn’t prepared to go home. His mum would be there, anxious about why he’d left his friends early, presumably the only parent in a 50 mile radius _unhappy_ that her kid wasn’t getting up to horrifying unknowns at a house-party.

But here he was and Johnny was sad. Still a dick. But not – as of this moment – interested in being a dick in his direction.

“So, uh,” said Daniel, clearing his throat. Johnny turned back to him at last, like he’d woken up suddenly, letting his hand drop to his side. “Why’d she…?”

Ah, there it was. Trademark smirk. You could sell that smirk to the movies, make the perfect asshole villain. “Just asked if it wasn’t time for me to go back to her place, finish off.”

“Huh, that sounds… sleazy.”

He shrugged again. “She was into it until I told her it was just for the night. Think she didn’t want that kinda honesty.”

Daniel snorted. “You’re honest?”

A mistake. Johnny scowled and he was reminded that a sad Johnny and an angry Johnny were basically one stupid action from being interchangeable. “Yeah, I’m honest. Who told you I wasn’t? Ali?”

“No,” he said, backtracking at the way his voice twisted on _Ali_ , and because it was the truth. “No one did. But, you know… why? Uh, why just for the night?” he clarified. Not “ _why are you honest?”_ It made sense, actually, that Johnny had his own code. He was just used to not having to think about Johnny and virtues, like how he’d handed him the trophy with a _you’re alright LaRusso._ This conversation was already too fucking weird.

“Because I…” he started, belligerently, like he was really hoping for that fight, but then stopping himself with another glance at Daniel’s leg. “Guess I just didn’t wanna go home tonight.”

Fuck. He was back to that weird, wistful sadness that Daniel had zero experience in how to deal with. Maybe he really didn’t want Johnny to be honest. Or maybe he could ask Johnny to come with him, take that drive to nowhere together. Maybe a good talk was all they’d need and Daniel could at least feel a sense of completion after everything that had happened since he’d crashed into this new, strange life of karate rivals and highschool parties. If neither of them wanted to go home… he opened his mouth, about to say it: _I’m going for a drive. Wanna come?_

It sounded so stupid. Nobody would believe he was offering the guy who’d tormented him for months _a ride._ Nobody would believe that that guy could look rumpled and distressed and vulnerable like he did right now either.

Miyagi wouldn’t think it was stupid. He’d probably say something about the mistakes of the elders being corrected by the young or something. Maybe something about balance. Maybe…

“Anyway,” said Johnny, before he could make the words leave his mouth. “See you in school.”

He turned and walked away down the street, until he was swallowed by the road. Didn’t even look back towards the party. Like Daniel had imagined him out here.

Daniel didn’t say a thing. He thought about those swollen lips all night though, even though he couldn’t figure out why. Drove his car up to a hilltop overlooking bright lights and thought, _somewhere in some other Universe Johnny Lawrence is sitting up here with me._

For some reason that made him sad.

**Now**

And for some reason he almost completely forgot all about it right up until the night he kissed him, when it all came crashing back – _could’ve asked him if he wanted that ride. Could’ve saved myself thinking about what this would’ve been like for all these years_ _maybe_ _…_

Johnny’s lips were cracked and his breath had that unbrushed, alcohol mustiness to it that wasn’t _nice_ , but felt like Johnny. Like it was exactly how he was supposed to feel. Like this was right. It only lasted a few seconds, the kind of chaste, surprising thing that Daniel hadn’t done since he was a teenager. Johnny didn’t respond for a terrifying second, but then his tongue met Daniel’s, testing, before they both pulled back as if they'd been stunned. The aftermath was disconcertingly similar to his first kiss, at least to begin with. Both of them blinking awkwardly with silent questions: _Was this what you wanted? Did I do it right? Does this change things?_

And then reality decided to crash the moment.

“Holy shit, that was-” said Johnny, right as Daniel said, “Oh my god, I cheated on my wife.”

Johnny stopped himself from saying whatever else he’d intended as the realisation of that sank in. “You… yeah,” he finished instead.

Daniel nodded. “I uh… fuck, I’ve gotta-”

“Yeah,” said Johnny, looking just as punched in the face as Daniel felt.

“- don’t move,” said Daniel, standing and waving his hands, like he could put him on pause. “I’ll uh… yeah…”

Johnny looked down at the floor and threw a haphazard thumbs up his way as he ran out of the dojo.

Making it back home without an accident was something of a miracle, considering he didn’t remember getting into his car and driving in the first place. His mind flashed through so many images – _stale alcohol taste, soft blue eyes, oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, what have I done,_ _wanna come for a ride, somewhere in some other Universe I never did that, guess I just didn’t wanna go home tonight, swollen lips, chapped lips, oh fuck what did I just do –_ that he didn’t even return to himself until he’d entered the front door and unexpectedly found Amanda by herself at the kitchen island, old pyjamas, cup of coffee warming her hands.

There was something forlorn about her sitting there, not safely shielded by her dresses and perfectly done hair. He usually loved her like that, mask off just for him, but not when she seemed so tired and alone beneath it. Had he done that to her? Had she come down here on her own every time he’d fled the house?

She looked up when the door opened and smiled softly at him, a brief moment of insecurity before it was covered by her usual, perfect charm. They had that in common. The ability to fool everyone into thinking they were pretty much perfect, but she was just that bit better at it than he was.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Didn’t know you’d be back so soon.”

“I…” he managed, before it all came back again – _take away all my bullshit and what kinda Johnny Lawrence is even left? Always wondering what kissing him felt like. In some other Universe, wanna go for a ride somewhere…_

“I kissed Johnny,” he said.


	2. Rootless Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, so I had become so convinced that Ali's friend was called Suzie that I was actively re-editing it in my head as I was reading the original screenplay. I will be go back to chapter one and correct that, but hey, coulda been worse, could've gone through all of this without knowing Johnny's or Daniel's names. Who's the Karate Kid again?
> 
> Heed the tags, this chapter deals with alcoholism and Johnny's general headspace. There is also a scene that alludes to Laura's and Sid's arrangement (I hesitate to call it a relationship). I didn't tag that as anything more specific, but it's there.

What I want from us is empty our minds  
Well we fake a fuss and fracture the times  
We go blind when we've needed to see  
And this leans on me just like a rootless

So fuck you, fuck you, fuck you  
And all we've been through  
I said leave it, leave it, leave it  
It's nothing to you  
And if you hate me, hate me, hate me  
Then hate me so good that you can let me out, let me out, let me out  
Of this hell when you're around

_Rootless Tree // Damian Rice_

__________________________________________

**Now**

Johnny did exactly as he was told and stayed where he was, even though he was pretty sure LaRusso – Daniel – hadn’t actually been in enough of a headspace to know what he’d been asking. Truth be told he didn’t have anywhere to go anyway. Home wasn’t an option he liked to think about and going for a drive to nowhere just to escape wasn’t appealing either.

This was okay enough. This was… peaceful. Just him and that picture of Miyagi. He’d thought Miyagi watching him used to be creepy, but he was coming around, even begun bowing slightly to him when he entered, in case he could see him. This was his dojo after all, gotta offer him the proper respect, even if the two of them hadn’t actually been close – hadn’t even exchanged any words with him. Always Miyagi versus Kreese, Daniel versus Johnny. Miyagi saving his life. He and Daniel never talked about that. He and Daniel never talked about a lot of things. Story of his life.

If Miyagi been watching tonight though… fuck.

That had really happened… don’t think about it. Don’t think about it man, don’t think… would Daniel actually come back? He doubted it, more likely he’d be getting the message in the next few days that this wasn’t working, that there’d been a mistake and they needed to stop seeing each other after business hours. Maybe he could at least keep training the kids with him, if he was lucky. Not for his own sake, but the kids needed at least the illusion that things were okay; needed that stability. Daniel and Amanda would understand that.

“Any advice, old man?” he said to Miyagi’s picture. “Yeah, thought not,” he muttered, then added, just in case he _was_ listening: “Sorry about the beer, my bad.”

If he wanted to do the honorable thing he oughta just leave. But he shoulda left years ago, gone to drink himself to death somewhere far away where he’d never be found.

His lips felt like they were buzzing- _don’t think about it._

He thought about everything else from earlier in the day instead. Not that that was more fun to be reminded of, but at least it wasn’t… that. It was other stuff, like waking up with more of an itch than usual, like his body just needed it that bit more on this particular day for some reason – not alcohol specifically, just something to make him not be as aware of being alive. Could be any other shitty coping mechanism that he wasn’t allowed anymore or sparring. Sparring shut down everything else and had the benefit of not being self-destructive.

Oh yeah, no training today, that was why he was feeling like this in the first place. He should’ve been prepared for it. Days without training were always like this for him, empty space inside that got filled with a craving instead.

It was fine. Knock on the Diaz’ door and ask what they were up to – no answer. Call them to find out where they were at – no answer. Still fine. Couldn’t expect them to include him in every aspect of their lives, he wasn’t the kid’s dad and he wasn’t dating Carmen anymore (still on amicable terms, which was rare for him and he didn’t want to fuck that up by demanding too much). Besides, Miguel had been wary enough around him after last time he’d gone on a bender, he couldn’t afford to mess that up again.

Fine.

Bounce up and down on his toes while he weighed up whether or not to call the LaRussos, see if they had anything planned. In the end he didn’t have the guts for that and rocking up to their front door like some weird relative was only a funny thought for about half a second before imagining their faces, at which point the scenario turned more into a nightmare of pitying expressions directed at the loser who had zero options besides begging to hang out with them. Besides they were probably out.

Still fine. Still fine, still fine.

Get in the car and drive. Not intend to go past the strip-mall, but there it was, like instinct had pulled him there.

See Robby. Get as far as a hand on the car door and then decide not to. Just watch him and a few other students waiting for the dojo to open. Robby was a good fighter that time he’d seen him at the tournament – he’d been good when he’d been trying to fight him, just sloppy because of anger. He was probably even better now, for all that the training methods would be breaking him in other ways, if they were anything like how Johnny remembered them.

There was that craving getting louder. Wanting that training back. The way it was the only thing apart from music or drinking or sex that ever made his mind go quiet – and it was better than the last two options for it too, way, way better than the kind of meditation shit LaRusso laced his lessons with.

He wanted to be pushed past any limits he thought he had, not have to worry about why he was doing it or what he was becoming. Just let himself get pulled underwater. Star student, perfect form, trusting the current would take him someplace better, or at least someplace he didn’t have to think about it. Man, he would’ve said yes to anything back then with how high on it he was.

Was Robby the star student as well?

He watched for as long as he dared before escaping in case he saw Kreese or that fucking snake Terry. LaRusso – _Daniel –_ still hadn’t told him what the hell was up between the two of them, but he was bad news. Even Johnny Lawrence, so naive he’d let Kreese waltz right back into his life, could see that. Or maybe he could only see it because he trusted LaRusso’s judgment now. He could see how afraid he was, even if he wouldn’t tell him why.

So much for fucking instinct, he thought and drove off.

He ended up outside one of those places LaRusso had suggested. Shoved a bunch of fucking pamphlets about recovery in his hands that Johnny had pretended not to keep and memorized the meeting times of – _don’t_ _need to sob to a bunch of_ _pansy-ass_ _strangers about_ _not getting enough hugs as a kid_. Fuck you body. Fuck you car. Fuck you road. Fuck anything that got him to this point, like a lifetime of alcohol consumption. Fuck that in particular.

Why hadn’t he told Daniel that he’d gone to the stupid meeting when he mentioned it? Because it’d been a disaster, that was why, and he hated when Daniel was disappointed in him in a way he could brush off with most other people.

Miguel and Carmen had never really seen him at his worst, while Robby and Shannon had and had rightfully given up on him. But LaRusso had met him when he was an asshole, he’d known all his most petty, vicious, horrible sides from the word go and now he was expecting better, like he’d seen a better that not even Johnny knew about. And at the same time LaRusso was so much better already – poor, skinny little punk who’d always been a magnet to others, like it was a damn superpower pulling everyone to him, like he was planet. Even Johnny…

So he didn’t want to tell LaRusso how he’d hung around outside, berating himself for being a coward when his legs seemed to stick to the sidewalk. _Can’t even move your legs_ _now, huh you fucking pussy?_ _Johnny ‘Ain’t No Quitter’ Lawrence can’t step in there to even listen to alcoholics talking about their fucked up lives. Hey remember how you missed your son’s birth because you were too_ _wasted and scared?_ _Buncha’ strangers are gonna make you tell that story_ _and tell you to make amends_ _. Think that was your rock bottom? You know it’s not even scratching the surface._ _P_ _athetic._

Kreese had been wrong to try and get him back. Wrong to try to mold him in the first place, even if he was an asshole in his own right. Johnny had never been worth the time anyone had wasted on him. If Daniel was a planet then he was a black hole.

His dad got it right at the start when he’d fucked off outta their lives before Johnny could even form any memories about him. His mom got it the most wrong when she held out hope until she died. Everyone now was getting it wrong too, but he was too much of a pussy to do the right thing and let them go. He wanted them to stay. He wanted them to believe he was better. He wanted LaR- _Daniel._ Daniel. Daniel, Daniel... to believe he was better.

He wanted a drink.

Daniel demanded so much from him. Vulnerability, strength, honesty. He could do honesty at least. Not telling someone something wasn’t not being honest, especially if it didn’t even matter. He could tell that Daniel had wanted to ask him why he’d fallen off the wagon and what could he have said?

That he’d gone to the dojo with the beer, sat down and been unable to get it out of his head: _I saw my son. He looked like me. I tried to go to AA. Didn’t go to AA. Didn’t talk to my son. Should’ve run further away when he was born. Should’ve run to, I don’t know, Florida. People disappear in Florida, right? Plus, there’s a Disney World in Orlando, so I coulda’ gone on all the rides and been arrested for picking a fight with Mickey Mouse. Anyway_ _I’ve_ _bought two six-packs and I_ _don’t_ _wanna go home, because Miguel already found me once and there’s a limit to how much people can deal with your fuck-ups and you gave me the key to the dojo, that’s on you man. My mom’s buried here, so I can’t run away anyway. She got it wrong when she didn’t run away from me, so I can’t_ _leave her now_ _._ _Robby_ _shoulda_ _had someone like her, he’d’ve been okay then._

At this point he’d been drinking, like he’d been asleep and halfway woken up only to notice that he was actually speaking half of these words out loud into the empty space (or to Miyagi) and the first bottle was done and beer wasn’t _drinking_ drinking. It barely caused a buzz unless you had enough and he was only looking for the buzz. Quiet his thoughts.

_Or you, “Daniel” –_ he formed out Daniel slowly, halfway between sarcastic and unsure. Saying _Daniel_ was still a novelty. Might be a rush and a jolt to say it until the day he died, like… _mountain-climbing? Never gone mountain-climbing. Like winning a fight. Like getting into a fight. Like fighting you. Ha. Still owe me Rocky III, man. You still owe me… You shoulda kept on training Robby, you were better at being a dad than me. Sam’s pretty great, she’s like a mini-you, except she_ _doesn’t have spaghetti arms and_ _can actually pack a punch. We should go to Disney World, but not without Rocky. I mean Robby. Fuck._

Bunch of other thoughts, but he’d been getting pretty drunk by then and couldn’t remember what thread they’d followed, if any.

Couldn’t tell Daniel all of that, it made no fucking sense. _Why’d you drink again? No reason, just wanted a drink,_ _because my brain was loud and I needed quiet_ _._

He’d told Daniel something that was more the truth anyway. Honest about most of it, breaking everything on purpose because wanting wasn’t an option, but he was right not to talk about being a kid and thinking about how much he wanted to be as big as other boys, make himself into someone that nobody could look at and think was wrong. Fit into spaces with boys like he was James Bond, in uh… fuck, it didn’t matter which one. “Licence To Kill,” he said out loud as if Daniel was still next to him and needed to know. “Because the drug-lord doesn’t know he’s a spy until… fuck, I don’t remember. I’ll watch it again, Miguel said he knows how to ‘pirate’ movies apparently. Can watch them on my _lap-top_.” He popped the _p_ at the end of both of the syllables.

Daniel crashing into his life had been like… like… “like when the Bond girl gets caught and he’s gotta blow his cover to save her,” he said, scoring a point in his imaginary discussion on keeping his metaphors relevant. Also calling Daniel a Bond Girl. Win.

But Daniel though, in all seriousness… he’d been completely unable to hide behind invulnerability, the way Johnny had once been unable to before he’d made himself perfect – strong, angry, aggressive. Still just Johnny Lawrence who listened to music on his walkman to shut out the world and cried at night for his mom and thought he’d figure out his life after high-school and they wouldn’t need Sid to take care of them, and sometimes thought about how beautiful boys were, different to how he thought girls were beautiful, but not as different a feeling as he wished it was. He could twist himself into a new shape, turn those feelings into something angry, but the… the… the _genesis_ (see, he knew words) – that was impossible to completely cover up, if only for himself.

Daniel ruining the plan he’d had to make it up to Ali after giving her the time to cool off, or more like a reminder that she’d been serious when she’d ended things and he hadn’t been able to accept that, but _this guy?_ The fucking opposite of Johnny, scrawny, short, mouthy, overly-confident, weak. Just an uncomfortable footnote in his life, dealt with at the beach, never to be thought of again.

Only to be thought of again and again and again.

“You know… think I thought about you so much in that one year I burned you into my brain. Asshole.” God, he wanted another drink and there were still four bottles left. no. No, Daniel had told him to stay where he was, not to continue the party while he waited.

He sighed. “Thought about… fuck, you probably don’t even remember.” That last time they’d ever really spoken. Spoken spoken, versus a couple of passing comments and stolen looks at school, like they were in some undercover spy movie. Although maybe that was giving it too much credit. A handful of angry comments outside a party and then awkwardly staring at each other, while Johnny imagined asking him, _hey, wanna get outta here? I’ve got weed._

  
  


**1985**

He’d been suffocating since the tournament, covered in bruises, his throat so sore it hurt to turn his head or swallow, medic checking him over and telling him to take it easy after that kick had sent his neck ricocheting backwards, given him some advice that he couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember much of anything, like he’d just had a bad dream and the tournament hadn’t happened yet.

It was fine, because his body reminded him the next day and the next and the next, while he pretended to head out to practice and covered up the bruising with high collars and turtlenecks, because admitting to Sid that he’d been kicked off the team made him want to throw up (even though the team didn't even exist anymore anyway. Like it had all just been a dream).

Mom had known something was up – _hey, was wondering if I could see your new trophy,_ she said, because that was a sure-fire way to get him excited usually. He’d made up a quick lie about forgetting it at the dojo and hoped she wouldn’t bring it up again. She didn’t, but he knew it was because she’d twigged his mood. Probably wasn’t hard to do if you were paying any kind of attention, he’d never been good at hiding how he felt. So he started avoiding her too.

There wasn’t any plan to it, he just alternated between hanging out in his room and experimenting with how much he could move his head in any direction before he felt sick and leaving the house all day (riding his bike was fucking even more with his neck, so he left it in the garage and walked). He slept a lot too, like he’d used up all the energy in his body on that one night. Could’ve sworn he’d never slept this much in his life.

Christmas was a blur of a series of arguments and getting drunk in a bar on a fake ID, thinking at least all the training had paid off in convincingly making him look five years older, even if he could barely get anything down before he felt dizzy. Body letting him down again. Couldn’t train. Couldn’t even swallow easily. His mind might be trying to forget, but the rest of him was remembering all too well.

  
  


None of it lasted very long. Bobby showed up at the house one day while he was out and asked if he was around, sending the deception crashing to the ground and a whole night of Sid berating him about wasting his money and his time, while Johnny stood there thinking about how his neck hurting was probably payback for screwing with LaRusso’s leg. Or for losing the match. One of the two, he wasn’t sure which.

Mom came to him afterwards and told him the usual lies – it’d be fine, he could train somewhere else, not the end of the world – until he’d snapped at her and she’d flinched. First and only time he did that to her. First and only.

“I’m sorry,” he said, one of the only times an apology came easy to him. “Just forget it, okay? I just… my neck hurts,” he admitted, not telling her why and refusing to let her suggest going to get it checked out, because Sid would have to pay for it and whatever he demanded in return wasn’t worth it.

“Alright. But go talk to Bobby, ‘kay? He seemed really worried.” She stroked his hair off his forehead. He leaned into the touch until his head rested against her shoulder, as she continued to card her cool fingers through his hair, soothing the ache of it all. He didn’t cry, or at least, she didn’t mention it to him afterwards. Kissed him on the cheek and told him to get some sleep and that she was proud of him.

  
  


The pain subsided over the next few weeks, while the various bruises turned ugly before finally shrinking. He fell back into the gang as if everything was fine, met up, smoked, drank, almost like nothing had changed, except for the lack of purpose. Without the reason that they had become friends in the first place, Johnny began to fall back into old anxieties he thought he’d overcome.

What if he became that old version of himself? What if he still was that person and the others were simply beginning to notice? Bobby in particular kept on looking over at him, like he was seeing something he didn’t understand.

They made vague plans that they were going to see each other in class, but when the time came he drove his bike past school and never went. LaRusso would be there. Ali would be there.

He ended up only attending a handful of times, blending into the background so easily it was like he’d never forgotten how to, forging signatures to explain his absences, until eventually he didn’t even bother any more. Not showing up to meet the boys so they could drive in together. Ducking away the handful of times he spotted Ali. Lingering for as long as he dared whenever he saw LaRusso, noting how he went from cast to brace to less visible brace and thinking that whatever he’d been suffering, LaRusso had it worse. No balance really restored then, if that brace was staying on for so long and Johnny wasn’t even hurt anymore.

Sid hadn’t gone without a comment about Cobra Kai a single time he’d seen him since finding out the truth. _What happened, huh? Get hit once too many in the face? Running away from being a man? Fuck up too many times? Get sick of you? I’m not paying for any more of your shit. Probably just got sick of you. You know how much those classes cost?_ _I’ll punch you for free kid, you know that._ _They realize you’re no good?_ _Knew that first time I saw you._

It was fine. They didn’t see each other that much. Besides, this was nothing compared to LaRusso’s leg. This was barely tipping the scales. Squared his shoulders and took it.

  
  


Dutch told him about the party, offhand but challenging – _none of us were invited, we’re gonna crash it though, right?_ remaining unsaid. Probably Ali’s doing, thought Johnny, after seeing their antics at the tournament. Made sense. Attacking her boyfriend for months and fucking up his leg would’ve eroded any kind of goodwill she had left towards any of them.

Which was why going to the party was a great idea. Go in, try not to start any fights, avoid Daniel LaRusso – he knew the others were looking to him on that last point. Well, not Bobby. Bobby was done with this shit. He wasn’t even coming to the stupid party. And then Jimmy pulled out, because he was always a bit more of a pussy and Tommy and Dutch got into trouble and were grounded, which just left him.

Nothing else to do.

He even dressed up for it, got out a nice shirt and a thin, black leather jacket over jeans (he’d shoved the Cobra Kai jacket as far back into the closet as he could), figured that if he was there he might as well look like he belonged.

He didn’t bother trying to sneak out – these days he was more out of the house than in and even though mom was trying to keep track of him, he was stonewalling her enough that she’d soon give up, he was sure. Sid didn’t care, obviously.

He was nearly out when he caught the sound of her low, fearful voice from the kitchen, Sid’s rumble accompanying it. It was familiar. He’d learned early on that this was the part of the arrangement that she tried to keep from him, as if he hadn’t know for years why Sid had married her. A lot of the time she performed that role well enough for her mask to be practically un-cracked around Johnny, but sometimes he stumbled over scenes he knew she’d never want him to see and carefully backed out before she noticed him, never talking about it.

If he left now she’d be more grateful than if he intervened.

He opened the kitchen door and they both turned around. Nothing bad had happened yet, except for all the bad things that had long ago already happened. He was possessively gripping her arm and was crowding her against a cupboard, but they were both clothed at least.

There was surprise on both of their faces to see him there, an expectation that he would explain his presence, but he had none. He just looked right back at them, hoping for an answer.

“Well?” asked Sid at last. “What’re you gonna do?”

He bunched his fists.

When Sid’s eyes travelled down to the movement he started to laugh, a hoarse, cigarette-smoke hacking that Johnny had hoped would kill him for years. “I can have you outta here within the hour, you know that kid. Like your stupid karate team.”

Johnny’s eyes flickered to his mom, wanting her to say something – ask for help, tell him it’d be okay, even just give him the order to leave. She didn’t speak. Her gaze lowered, like she was just ashamed he’d seen.

He walked back out, Sid’s voice calling after him: “Where you going kid, stay for the show!”

  
  


He didn’t remember how he got to the party, already drunk off whiskey he got outta Sid’s private stash. He’d pay for that later. Now he just wandered about until he found someone he didn’t know. Missed her name. Didn’t matter. Thought she was kissing him, but he couldn’t focus enough on what was going on to be sure. Didn’t matter. Wasn’t sure if he wanted this. Didn’t matter. She was hot though.

He didn’t actually wake up from whatever weird out-there space he was inhabiting until he’d let her manhandle him against a tree out the front and a strange feeling began to invade him, like he was being watched. He looked up and felt like he’d dunked his head into ice-cold water.

After weeks of trying to catch a glimpse of him without being noticed in return and there LaRusso was, staring blatantly like he wasn’t afraid of anything, least of all of watching Johnny like he was a show he’d paid for. Johnny grinned. He could be a show.

LaRusso continued to look, eyes bigger than Johnny had ever seen them, before something shook him out of his own daze and he turned away, breaking the connection and heading back in as quickly as his fucked up leg could carry him. Disappointing, but hey, this wasn’t a total loss of a night. She was murmuring about finding someplace more private and LaRusso’s big, dark eyes seemed to have burned themselves onto the inside of his retinas, so that when he shut his eyes and kissed her he could imagine LaRusso was right on the other side.

“What was that?” he said, knowing he’d missed something.

“Just wondering where you’re heading next.”

He opened his eyes and the image of LaRusso disappeared. _Yeah_ _I’m_ _wondering that too._ “Wherever you wanna go.”

She kissed him again. God, she was beautiful and he was fucking hard and her hands were going to his zipper with intention. For a moment he contemplated letting that happen, imagining what’d happen if LaRusso wandered back out again. Johnny would laugh if he saw, probably.

If it was someone else he knew though, if _Ali…_ he didn’t want her to see this. He wasn’t ever gonna have sex with a girl like with Ali, didn’t want to cheapen that. “Hey,” he managed, only a little strangled. “What’d you say about private? Your place?” She looked old enough to have her own place. One of Susan's college friends probably.

“Don’t usually let a guy back to my place on the first date,” she said teasingly, like she was about to reconsider.

That made him laugh accidentally. “This is a date?”

She shrugged. “No, but… I wouldn’t mind seeing you again.”

He tried to think back on what exactly had impressed her about him enough to warrant that comment. Maybe his automatic setting was more charming than when he actually tried.

“Look, uh, I’m not really looking for more than a night. I just thought against a tree… not so classy.”

Amazing how quickly someone could go from horny to pissed off. Two sides of the same coin. A coin with only one side that’d actually get you laid, unless it was spinning perfectly on the balance of horny _and_ pissed off, but he had a feeling that wasn’t what was happening here.

“Not classy?” she said loudly, stepping back.

“Yeah?” he said, feeling like he was missing something. Her name, obviously, but probably also whatever reason she’d picked up on that part of what he’d said. “Why, did you want to suck my dick on the porch?”

“Yeah, no, I’m going home – _without_ you. Asshole.” Johnny should’ve just not opened his mouth. Things were going really well before he tried talking. So talking was bullshit, clearly.

She turned to go and he stepped after her – “hey, you came onto me-”

She slapped him and stalked off. Before he could continue after her – not because he was still interested, but because he hated losing an argument – a loud _ooh_ from behind him made him turn around. Oh yeah. Of course LaRusso had come back out. Always had to witness him failing, like his whole purpose in life was to remind Johnny of his mistakes.

He stepped towards him – no intention behind it, but LaRusso stepped back right on his bad leg and flinched. It stopped him dead on his tracks. He’d done that. Not all on his own, but he’d done it. And there wasn’t really a reason in the end, was there – just one kid with a busted leg and another kid who’d lost everything anyway, even though he’d done everything he was told to do. No meaning.

“How’s the leg?” he asked.

“Good. How’s the nose?”

Better than his cheek. It burned slightly from the slap – a pleasant feeling almost, like a wake-up. Like getting hurt in a fight. Like landing a hit. Feeling alive. Now that he was awake again though he remembered what’d happened back at the house and he felt disgustingly like he wanted to cry.

Focus on LaRusso instead. He kept on talking. Follow that voice away from home, come up with acceptable answers to his questions – _J_ _ust asked if it wasn’t time for me to go back to her place, finish off._ _She was into it. Until I was honest._

LaRusso snorted. “You’re honest?”

It was funny how quickly Johnny went from almost liking the kid to wanting to punch him. “Yeah, I’m honest. Who told you I wasn’t? Ali?” His voice came out wrong on her name, like he was pleading that it wasn’t her. He could accept that she hated him, accept that he’d fucked up in a way he couldn’t fix, but if she’d talked about him like that… forgotten the good parts of him… he was pathetic.

“No,” he said. That was something, at least, even though Johnny could tell LaRusso was pitying him, voice gone all soft. Hadn’t heard that voice before. Hated it immediately. _Don’t you fucking pity me._ “Why just for the night?”

He really was standing opposite the person he both most and least wanted to get into a fight with. Like that fucking coin again, standing on its edge, except not angry and horny, angry and… something else. Not horny. “Guess I just didn’t wanna go home tonight,” he managed as a compromise and it hit him that LaRusso didn’t want to stick around this place any more than he did. That was why he’d come outside – twice. He was making a getaway. And wherever he went, Johnny could follow. Even had weed on him as an enticement, although he doubted LaRusso had ever smoked. First time for everything. Johnny could show him how it worked.

_Take me with you,_ he wanted to say. _Don’t go home, I know a place where no one can see us. Ask me and I’ll take you there._ But he didn’t ask and Johnny was never gonna either.

Instead he said a hurried goodbye and left him standing behind, no doubt with an even lower opinion of him than before. It was fine. He would never be able to change that anyway. Why try? _Where’s that Strike First mentality now, huh Johnny? What’s got you so scared you’re running away from a guy in a leg-brace? Where’re you running to? You left your car behind, genius, if you turn back now you might run into him again. Where else’ve you got to go?_

He wished he had his walkman with him, but he’d left it in his car, figuring it wouldn’t work for the party. Instead it was just walk, and think, and listen to his own footsteps and the blood rushing in his ears. Luckily he knew this area. It wasn’t even too far off from where he lived, could make it on a fifteen minute jog, but his feet didn’t carry him that way, instead ending up outside Bobby’s house, palms sweating, like there was something to feel nervous about. He shook his head. It was just Bobby, he thought, wandering around to the back and picking up some likely-sized pebbles, flicking them against his dimly lit window.

Bobby stuck his head out after a couple pings. “Johnny, wh- ? I’m coming down.”

Johnny headed to the backdoor. It wasn’t the first time he’d arrived late, usually with a plan to meet Bobby so the two of them could join the others somewhere, or those times they stumbled back to his, trying not to wake up his parents. He’d slept in Bobby’s bed more than he’d slept in Ali’s, which admittedly wasn’t that much and he’d always had to sneak out of her window at dawn, because her parents were prudes. Funnily enough he never thought about it as a sex-thing. It was just nice, sharing a bed with someone else. Ali or Bobby.

Bobby opened the door and pulled him inside without a question, which at least was something. He looked like he’d been about to go to bed, down to his t-shirt and boxers. His hair was mussed in the way Bobby’s hair so easily got – once when Johnny was high he’d stroked through it, mumbling nonsense, before lying down and letting Bobby pet him, but he pretended later on he couldn’t remember that.

By the time they’d gotten into his bedroom there was a sense that something was off. They were different, somehow. Couldn’t just head to bed and sleep without talking, like they’d done on previous occasions where Bobby accepted that Johnny couldn’t or wouldn’t speak.

Bobby had been the first one to reach out to him, almost immediately quoting _Cobra Kai brothers for life now, right_ – Cobra Kai brothers for life meant that even though they weren’t well-trained yet, they were ready to die for each other from the word go. And Bobby was good – almost as good as Johnny. He might even have been better, except that Johnny was doing this for different reasons. Different to Dutch who was angry, Jimmy who just liked hanging out with them, Tommy who got distracted by a good time, Bobby who’d been drawn in by the focus and the work.

Johnny wanted to dig himself out of his body and turn himself into someone completely different, and to do that he needed to be better than everyone. With Kreese that was an easy goal: Just do exactly as he said at all times.

But Bobby didn’t need that. Bobby was the kind of guy that shouldn’t’ve needed to reach out to Johnny in a million years, the kind of sensitive guy chick’s loved to twirl their hair around and made Johnny tongue-tied until he realised that Bobby was so easy. He’d be jealous if that ease wasn’t directed at him.

There were things he could do with Bobby he could never do with the others. Sure, they were all allowed to press up against each other when they were drunk or high and they saw each others dicks on a regular basis in the changing rooms, they could hug and slap each others’ backs and compliment how badass their kicks were getting or their upper arms were looking, but Bobby and him could lie next to each other on bedsheets that smelled like him – Bobby smelled nice under the usual teenage boy sweat (although the sweat wasn’t bad either) – and let their hands touch without needing to justify it in any way.

It didn’t feel easy now.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he finally asked, refusing the urge to do something sissy like fidget, even though he really really wanted to. It was just Bobby.

For a moment he was so scared of the answer that he wanted to turn and run, but then Bobby shrugged. “Sure man. You can always stay here.”

“… Yeah.” Relief. Of course he could.

Johnny stripped to his underwear and t-shirt, stumbling a little – maybe he was a bit drunk after all – before he slipped under the covers. Bobby lay down on the other side, his naked arm burning where it almost touched Johnny’s. Then he turned over and turned off the light, leaving Johnny with just the sound of his breathing.

After a few seconds Bobby broke the silence, protected by the fact that neither of them had adjusted to the darkness enough to see each other yet. “You know… you can tell me stuff.”

“Yeah,” said Johnny in the same tone as before.

The quiet dragged on enough that Johnny thought they might be done talking, but then Bobby said: “I wish I hadn’t done what Kreese told me. To Daniel’s leg.”

_Since when had it been Daniel?_

“… saw him. Today. LaRusso.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Johnny said quietly.

“Oh,” said Bobby, as if there was more contained beneath that he couldn’t formulate, so _oh_ was the best he could do. “He’s alright, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Johnny for a third time. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Johnny.”

He closed his eyes, hoping the booze and the bed and Bobby’s familiar smell would help him fall asleep, but was immediately met by a brown, questioning gaze. _You’re honest? Why just for the night? How about we go for a ride somewhere…?_

He barely slept at all, listening to Bobby’s heavy breath and imagining what the drive might’ve looked like in some impossible version of his life in which LaRusso had asked and he'd said yes – blurry, as if he wasn’t allowed to look at the details too closely – feeling like he’d missed out on something important.

  
**Now**

Johnny picked himself up off the floor and began to collect the bottles to throw in the trash. Sober enough to know he couldn’t risk any of the kids seeing them. Too sober to not feel like shit.

Why was he thinking about that night as if it was important? It’d been a strange one, sure, but nothing had happened. The whole point of it was that nothing had happened. The most memorable part was the fact that it was the closest he and Daniel had gotten to a full non-antagonistic conversation for the entire school year, but otherwise… sure, he’d thought about the hypothetical drive once or twice after (more than once or twice), but life kept going and eventually he’d stopped.

It wasn’t anything. None of it was anything.

Daniel had just kissed him, hadn’t he? That was something. Couldn’t forget that if he drank a whole bar – _is that a challenge?_ he asked himself, only mostly joking. He’d kissed him and then run home to the wife that he very much still had and whom Johnny actually really liked. She was usually only a small push from joining Johnny in mercilessly teasing Daniel or telling him again how she’d slapped Kreese, or threatening to go do something that even Johnny stopped for a second to think about – just for a second though, the arson idea she’d kind of suggested sounded better by the day.

God, he didn’t want her to hate him too now. Or awkwardly start avoiding him. He didn’t want to lose this thing, whatever it was, just because he was used to losing things. See, he’d cleaned up the beer, now Daniel could take back the kiss, pretend it never happened. This night was as non-happening as that night. If things just didn’t happen then nothing could get worse.

He should’ve called him, told him it was no big deal, he wasn’t even mad and he knew Daniel wasn’t gay. Johnny wasn’t gay and he’d kissed guys before when drunk off his ass, this was almost the same, except Daniel had been the one to start and he’d barely reciprocated before he started to panic. And Johnny hadn’t been as drunk as usual. And he hadn’t wanted to throw up afterwards, although that urge was growing now.

If he left now, before Daniel came back… could drive off anywhere. Head to Florida. Do that Disney World trip and never have to face the repercussions of this. Or Texas. You could really disappear in Texas. Someplace warm though, he wasn’t going anywhere like New Jersey. It was weird how Daniel still seemed more like he belonged there than here. Couldn’t get rid of that accent. Johnny wouldn’t fit in up there, any more than Daniel did down here, even if he did get invites to the country club now. Still just a punk kid.

He brought out the trash and stopped by his car, hovering. Yeah right. What would he do in Jersey or any of those other places, even if Daniel had fucked him, metaphorically. He was still expected to do better _._ Fucking Daniel LaRusso. Fuck you. He wandered back inside, nodding to Miyagi – _see, didn’t run, man, I'm not running._

Nothing for it but to wait.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fax: In an early draft of KK2 when Kreese storms by at the beginning, he knocks Miyagi to the ground and Johnny helps him up. They don't talk (and I don't use it as canon in this, because that's not what happens onscreen), but it's a whole Moment that made me realise that apart from Miyagi beating up the Cobra Kai kids they really never did interact. Anyway, unreliable narrators and all that, made the decision that Johnny doesn't remember if he exchanged words with Miyagi on Halloween night, because that didn't stand out to him in comparison to beating up Daniel and getting his ass kicked. Must be weird to have your life saved by this guy you never talked with.
> 
> Anywhomst, if anyone wishes to scream with me about these dumb kids-now-men, I love screaming.


	3. Ugly Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apropos nothing: Today years old upon learning that the original screen-writer of the karate kid just fully... was the karate kid? Obviously not, but man, he really was drawing from his own life for a lot of that, huh. Makes you want to see Johnny take his kids to a bar-fight as his way of proving they're worthy of a black belt and then making them kneel in a parking lot so he can ceremonially give it to them then and there.
> 
> Anyway, I have no patience, so here's chapter 3, a day early, as a treat.

I'm shown your cage, to wage this rage,  
Don't let me go

  
A kick and a scream is all that seems  
to mean a lot thus far  
I won't let you on my stage, my page,  
You can't know, yet you have to know

I only want you to see  
My favorite part of me,  
And not my ugly side  
Not my ugly side...

So calm, and now it's dark.  
I look for you to light my heart.  
I'm in between the moon and where you are.  
I know, I can't be far

_Ugly Side // Blue October_

__________________________________________

When Daniel and Amanda had met they’d fit right off the bat, as if they’d been waiting their whole lives to stumble into one another. They were similar enough to butt heads at first, but fell into bed practically without any dancing around (she was more forward than him, almost immediately cutting to the chase), and for once Daniel’s habit of falling in love quickly and intensely wasn’t met with a gradual pulling away. They had similar goals in life and worked in sync to meet those goals like two perfect cogs in a machine. The dealership, the kids, the house. They were partners. They fit.

_I kissed Johnny._

All of that crossed his mind as she looked at him without any surprise and said: “Huh, yeah. Figured,” in a tone of voice that didn’t seem to carry any of the anger or disappointment he’d expected. The anti-climax deflated him a bit, making him self-aware for the first time since rushing off from the dojo. Hair a mess, the old hoodie sweaty and rumpled, out of breath, his leg hurting and tight (sense-memory of Johnny’s tongue briefly meeting his own).

“You figured?”

She nodded slowly, then held up her coffee. “You want one of these? Think you’re gonna need it. None of us are going to bed tonight, are we?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll make it-”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ve got it,” she said, standing and heading to the coffee-maker. “You look like you’re about to keel over there, karate king.”

The twinging in his leg was getting worse, so he acceded. It had become more difficult to ignore it over the years, but especially since getting back into the fighting he’d been having less and less entirely pain-free days. Amanda had probably noticed. She noticed more than she said, he’d always known that. Arrogant to think she hadn’t seen this… whatever it was… between himself and Johnny. But still…

“So, uh…” he said, managing about five seconds of waiting before he couldn’t stand it anymore. “This clearly doesn’t come as a surprise to you.”

She turned suddenly. “You kissed him?”

“… yes?”

“For the first time?”

“Yes.”

“… _huh.”_

She continued to make his coffee.

“Look, I know – or I thought I knew that this’d be a shock to you, but I just wanted you to know that we’ll move forwards however you want to. And it wasn’t Johnny’s fault – fuck, I left Johnny at the dojo with beer-”

“You left Johnny at the dojo with _beer?_ Why was there beer there?”

“It’s – he relapsed, we were just talking, then we might’ve fought for a second -”

“- figures -” she muttered, putting the cup in front of him.

“- and then I just… I thought about something that happened when we were teenagers, it made sense in the moment, we were… it _did_ make sense,” he promised, drawing it closer, like it offered protection.

“Uh-huh. And that’s when you kissed him?” asked Amanda. It was beginning to feel more and more like she’d managed to good-cop him into a confession he’d already given.

“Yeah. Yes.”

“For the first time?” she asked again.

“Yes,” he re-clarified, before realizing,- “wait, did you think I’d kissed him before?”

“Honestly? Yeah. At least in high-school, probably sometime in the last couple of months since you’ve been ‘co-senseiing’ and spending all those hours planning lessons just the two of you and getting home late. You were planning a three-month sober celebration, honey.”

“Because I thought it oughta be celebrated,” he protested, as if there wasn’t some smidgen of truth to what she was saying – not that he’d kissed him before, and _certainly_ not while married to Amanda… but he’d thought about it. He’d thought about it in ways he could pretend he wasn’t thinking about it enough times that he’d long ago lost count. It was just a fascination with Johnny around girls, Johnny and Ali, who was Johnny with right now, maybe one or two weird dreams he hadn’t been able to control that started with fighting and ended… somewhere else. And at times, especially lately when they had more and more days in which they fit, not like he and Amanda fit, but… but it didn’t matter. “I didn’t set out to do this, I just…”

“Ever since he wandered into the dealership you’ve been looking out for Johnny,” she said. “You never thought that was weird?”

“No, well, yeah, but look. Nothing was ever gonna come out of that, I thought it was just some mixed-up feelings back from when I was a teen and then seeing him again." He was dimly aware of the fact that he sounded a bit hysterical, but ploughed on nonetheless, car careening towards crash: "One, Johnny wasn’t ever gonna want to kiss me,-” (too late, boat sailed, tongue tasted), “- _two,_ I’m, I’m _married!_ To you. Why would I be thinking about kissing any guy when I’m married?” That made perfect sense. As much sense as way back when he remembered how he’d stumbled through asking Ali how Johnny kissed, because apparently he'd wanted to 'do it better than him.' God, had Ali ever even fallen for that? 

“That explains so much,” Amanda said, simply, as if it explained anything to Daniel. Like with the leg, she’d been seeing more than she’d let on. Maybe waiting for him to confess so she could – Daniel didn’t know what. Right now he didn’t know anything.

“Does it?” he asked helplessly.

She sighed and sipped her coffee, nodding to him to do the same. Not that he thought he was in any danger of crashing, but he did as he was told, one short sip, mechanical.

“I’m gonna be quick, because you left Johnny at the dojo with beer and I’m gonna drive you back there in a moment. But I need to do this now, because I’m tired of this thing – not this thing with Johnny, but you, this thing happening _to_ you. I’m tired of how it’s hurting us. It’s been hurting us for years before he was back in the picture and I didn’t want to think about it, because I thought it was fine. You’re so good at masks, you fool me sometimes. And maybe I wanted it to be fine… but… it’s like whatever happened to you when you were a kid, you never recovered from it and I don’t know… you never told me. When we met it was like you’d shut that door so hard, I didn’t even know there _was_ a door, I thought I knew everything – hell, I thought the whole _Valley_ knew everything. But that was... I don't know, like the world's biggest truth covering up a secret. I’m guessing Miyagi knew? And after he died, it was like I started losing you to some person I never met. He looked the same and almost acted the same, but…”

He was tempted to say something. Apologize or explain, but there wasn’t anything that could sum it up that easy and she wasn’t finished, so he stayed quiet. Staying quiet seemed to be the right choice tonight.

She shook her head before continuing, as if she’d been containing all of this inside of her for far too long and needed to shake it out: “And then Johnny made his big reappearance, do you know what happened? You became obsessed. I couldn’t place it at first and then I thought, maybe I _had_ placed it, because this man you were so angry at, I mean, clearly he wasn’t any danger, maybe you just needed to talk it over with someone, sort out the past, cut him out or let him into your life, I don’t know. Make some decision. It just took me way too long to see… I thought you might’ve had some clueless attraction to each other, but I didn’t get that you guys, your whole lives are so entwined… you understand each other so well.”

Daniel snorted, unable to contain himself, then clarified: “You should’ve seen me earlier. I, uh, I messed up pretty bad. So much for understanding.”

“You kissed him,” she said. “He couldn’t’ve been too mad at you.”

“… yeah.”

“I guess. What I’m trying to say is that door isn’t shut any more, no matter how much you want it to be. And I felt like an idiot-”

“- you’re not -”

“- I’m not done.” He shut up again. “I felt like an idiot for marrying someone who’d been keeping so much back that I was worried he’d been lying to me ever since we met. But then, that wasn’t fair to you. Because you have been honest to me. About so much. It’s just this… everything. It’s like I’m turning a corner and suddenly I’m faced with another arch nemesis you never told me about, like I’m in a superman comic.”

He huffed out a brief humourless laugh. “Ha… yeah, I guess…”

Amanda took his hand: “These things. They’re not little things, Daniel. Not just you and Johnny, or that man – Silver – or Cobra Kai, but all of it.”

He nodded, not looking at her. All of it. Where to even begin when the tactic for over half of his life had been to just try and forget? He’d never planned for this to happen. But then, that slow, steady decline in the two of them – pulling further and further away until Amanda could no longer see him – it would’ve just continued. It wasn’t Johnny coming back, that had just been like fuel to the flame. It was just that he was so damn tired of keeping himself together.

“So what is it?”

 _I don't know. I feel like I'm losing my balance, like every_ _t_ _h_ _ing's just floating away._

_Only thing matter, Daniel not float away._

“What was what?”

 _I feel dead inside. I feel like that tree, all broken and twisted. You know – just pulled apart._ _I feel like the whole world is coming down on me and it’s my fault. It’s all my fault, I did it myself._

_Everything can heal Daniel-San. Just take time. Take patience…_

“What you’re always keeping back.”

 _Mr Miyagi, it’s over, it’s over forget about it._ _I’_ _m_ _afraid, let’s just get outta here, I wanna go home._

 _Y_ _ou’re not, you can’t, you must not. Okay lose to opponent, must not lose to fear._

He wondered if this was what people saw right before they died – flashes of his life passed before him, from Jersey to Reseda to Encino – good and bad, but even the good stuff landed like a weight on him. “I honestly… I don’t know. I mean that-” he added quickly when she opened her mouth to answer him, “- and I don’t mean… I’m not.” He stopped, trying to figure out how to say it, coming up short. “I don’t know,” he finally said again. “I’ve been this guy – the guy you met – for so long, I stopped noticing that he was an act I was putting on. Does that even make sense? I guess I just… I just don’t have anything in common with that kid who moved here anymore. No, that’s not right, it’s just… he made some mistakes and… you know, I, I didn’t like him much…” the inability to find the words – words he _knew_ were there – frustrated him. Worse still, he was pretty sure he was about to cry.

“This man. Silver. Whatever Kreese is to Johnny… is that…?”

“It’s… similar,” he admitted. He didn’t know how else to say it. It wasn’t that bad, not like the way Kreese had had Johnny for years – most of his teen life. It wasn’t like he’d internalized those mantras to the point of adoration, or that he’d been missing a parental figure in his life who could help him counter them when he got lost. It wasn’t that he’d had nowhere else to go. It’d been his own mistake. His own _stupid, stupid_ mistake. All his own fault from the beginning. His fault. Even though Miyagi had saved him, it was like some kind of tumour – not something that had happened to him, but something growing inside of him. His fault. But that was fine, he could manage that. Nobody needed to know about it. He didn’t even think about it a lot of the time.

It was just that he thought he’d gotten out. And then every once in awhile he’d wake up from a nightmare and think about Silver and worry he’d somehow managed to burrow himself into his head – _I’m inside your mind –_ that every time he fucked up, he deserved to suffer for it – _once I’m in I don’t get out_ _–_ so he made damn sure he never fucked up. _Your mine Danny-boy._

_Mine._

That he’d felt up until the day that Miyagi died that he wasn’t living up to standards and afterwards that there was no way he ever could. It was just that he was more scared now than he’d been since he was eighteen years old, as if time hadn’t healed any of his wounds, so maybe he was just that kid after all. Poor, stupid, faking, he had no right to complain. Plaster on that smile and keep on going, no right not to. His fault.

It was similar. Different. But somehow the same.

He was crying now. He hadn’t noticed it starting, not until Amanda hugged him and that was wrong too. He was the one who’d fucked up, long before tonight. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, trying to stop the tears, but that only made it worse.

“It’s okay…” she said, stroking through his hair. “I thought you’d gotten better… I’m sorry I didn’t see it-”

“No, I’m really sorry, I-” and the words weren’t coming again, but this time it was because he was crying so hard his throat was blocked, “- I should’ve, -” he tried again, but he didn’t really know what he could’ve done differently. He’d been fine, he really thought so. He’d succeeded. He’d gotten out and up. The past didn’t matter if you didn’t need that person anymore, if you’d excised everything. None of it mattered, it shouldn’t matter now all of a sudden.

But he’d kissed Johnny because he’d haunted him for years, like a first love you never let go of, and he was afraid of Terry Silver because he’d shoved him under his bed and assumed the monster would stay there, rather than ever try to face him, and he was still ashamed of his cousins hand-me-down clothes and the car that sometimes wouldn’t start and the sneers of various girlfriends parents, as if it had happened yesterday. And Miyagi… _god,_ he missed Miyagi so much, it was like the pain in his leg getting worse over the years instead of better.

For some reason the sheer amount of stuff that he couldn’t filter through made him laugh. Some logical part of his brain said he’d lost it now for good, but that didn’t stop him. Amanda stopped carding her hand through his hair (sadly) and moved back to look at him properly, eyebrow arched.

“This is the weirdest fucking night of my life,” Daniel managed through the tears and the laughing.

She smiled and that smile turned into a chuckle. “Huh, yeah… you did come barging into the kitchen to confess the treachery of kissing the karate rival you’ve been thinking about for thirty-odd years-”

“- and there’s snot on your pyjamas,” he added, laughing harder.

“- and you didn’t drink your coffee,” she said and now she was laughing too.

They stayed like that – arms wrapped around each other, laughing like they’d never stop – for a couple of minutes before calming down. They stayed close though. Amanda moved her hands along his neck around to comfortingly cup his head, stroking her thumbs across his tear-stained cheeks. “Daniel. I love you. And I know you, or, I know bits of you. Johnny knows some other bits.” She smiled, and said, like she just couldn’t believe it: “You really came running home after a, what? A three-second kiss?”

“W- _yes,”_ he blustered. “I messed up… I didn’t want to… I don’t want to lie to you. Or lose you. Or… or lose Johnny.” His heart felt like it was gonna beat right out of his chest.

“I like Johnny,” she said, like it was that simple. “And he makes you better. Which is good for me, because I’ve missed you…” she trailed off, pushing their foreheads together gently. “I’ve missed you,” she said again. He shut his eyes, just feeling her against him. Feeling safe.

She continued, softly, like it was a secret between the two of them: “And Johnny Lawrence is a good man. He can help bring you back. If bringing you back means bringing back that kid Daniel LaRusso as well… I wanna see him. I feel like he’s not as hopeless as you think he is. He’s you, after all.”

“… Okay.”

“Okay?”

He nodded and opened his eyes, breathing in and out.

“Good, I’d say it’s time to go then.”

“I can’t go back to him looking like this. One of us has to be marginally stable tonight.”

She rolled her eyes and let him stand. “Yeah, in this ménage à trois, I think that role definitely belongs to me right now.”

That stopped him right as he was about to splash some cold water onto his face. “You really mean it?”

She nodded. “You and me, we work together. We fit. You and me and Johnny, whatever that looks like, we’ll work too. Once we figure out the kinks. Come on, I’ll take you back.” She draped herself in a silk dressing-gown, impossibly beautiful to him even when tired and messy.

Especially like this. No masks on.

Amanda smirked and said in a playful tone of voice that woke him up more than any cup of coffee could've done: “Want a ride Daniel LaRusso?”

Daniel fidgeted the whole drive over, like a kid nervous for his first day of school. “He’s probably gone home,” he said for the fifth time, taking off his hoodie because the car was getting stifling.

“Then we’ll check at his place afterwards,” Amanda said calmly, like she’d done the other four times, but now she added: “I’ve got a suspicion he won’t be going anywhere, he’s imprinted on that dojo just like you did. Something about it…”

“I always feel like… like Miyagi’s there,” he admitted, immediately feeling stupid.

“Yeah. Thought so.”

“Nothing I say surprises you, huh?” he smiled.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. When you told me you’d never kissed Johnny before I was pretty surprised… thought you’d been cheating on me for months.” She said it calmly, like it was no big deal, because he hadn’t and they were fine. But he’d been hurting her all that time and it was because he'd looked for Johnny instead of her when he needed to find some companionship, come home after training feeling relaxed and calm in a way he hadn't for a year. Maybe years.

And because Daniel knew her so well, especially in this moment where they sat next to each other in a car at night, faces lit by streetlamps, he could picture how she’d waited for him to confess something, thinking on the good days that there was nothing to worry about, on the bad that maybe he’d tell her he was leaving her for this man – put her aside like she’d played her part on the stage, thank you, but she wasn’t needed any more. Not jealous. Just very alone, seeing him smile while he told her about something funny Johnny had said or done, scared and waiting. It was because of years of pulling away, fucking up their perfect synchronicity. It was because of their life, their marriage, her understanding of him had been shifting under her like sand.

Nights like this one where she’d sat downstairs and he’d thought she didn’t even notice him sneaking off until dawn. Thought this was his thing to carry on his own.

“Amanda, I… I am sorry. I should’ve never put you in a place to think that in the first place. I’ve been an idiot for not talking to you.” At least some of the words were there now, where before he’d struggled to articulate even a basic thought.

“Yeah,” she breathed out, like she was letting go of a bit of weight. “You and Johnny… you’re hot messes, the pair of you.” She flashed him a smile, a small one that reached her eyes and stayed there, twinkling.

“Hot though,” he smirked, a joke worthy of Johnny.

“Ha, yeah no one’s denying that. Think it’s the blue eyes. Soulful, you know. Blond hair. And obviously his arms…”

“ _Hey_ , what about me?” he whinged.

Amanda laughed. “I’m just joking. Well, no, I’m not, but you know your attributes. Don’t want to build up your ego any more, might get to that pretty little head of yours.”

“Pretty,” he repeated quietly, satisfied.

They pulled up to the dojo. Johnny’s car was still there, which was a good sign. Even better, Johnny came to the front door, looking wary, but relaxing slightly when he recognised the car. He didn’t look like he’d been drinking again. More alert than when Daniel had left him.

He tensed when he saw Amanda stepping out of the driver’s seat though, not the angry defensiveness he usually leaned on in difficult situations, but like he was preparing for an attack that he wouldn’t try to block.

Daniel winced. Yeah, he’d fucked this whole situation up. An hour ago he might’ve wished that he’d just never kissed him in the first place, but it seemed reckless impulsivity generally worked for him better than repressed caution. It wasn’t ideal, but that was his life.

“Hey Amanda,” said Johnny. “I, uh… I took out the garbage,” he said. “Beer cans and… so it’s all… you know, all done...” He reddened, flustered.

“Johnny,” she greeted him as she approached. “I’m just dropping Daniel off. You two have a lot to talk about and then I think _I_ deserve some sleep.”

He buried an obvious flinch when she raised a hand, then let his eyes flicker in confusion towards Daniel when all she did was touch his arm and lean in to murmur something in his ear, before kissing him reassuringly on the cheek. She stepped back again, stopping on her way to the car to give Daniel a short, sweet kiss, and drove off. The two of them were left squaring off, reminiscent of every antagonistic encounter they’d ever shared, except the tension was entirely different.

“What’d she say?” asked Daniel finally, realising he’d forgotten the hoodie in the car. Compared to Johnny’s familiar jeans, rock band t-shirt, red flannel combination he felt practically naked.

“She said everything would be fine.” said Johnny in a stunned voice.

“Yeah. We talked and… it was fine.” Man, thinking back over the last few hours was giving him a headache and he wanted to be focused right now. He wanted to go into the next steps of this – whatever they ended up being – clearly and open-eyed, not like before where he’d simply given in to some irrepressible pressure building over the years. There was no pressure now. He needed Johnny to understand this. They were going to be okay, no matter what happened.

Suddenly he had an idea.

“Hey, uh… dunno if you wanna go home, but I was gonna take a drive. Can come if you want.” For a second there was Johnny, kiss-red lips at seventeen, the sound of the party so clear in his mind it was as if he really had transported them back in time.

Johnny’s eyes widened, as if he too was remembering something in that moment. Then he nodded. “Yeah… yeah, uh… we’ll take my car.”

“I’m driving,” said Daniel, because it was high time he paid Johnny back for those times he’d stepped into the driver’s seat without his permission. And he wasn’t going to let a post-drunk, overly-wired Johnny behind the wheel.

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t scratch the paint,” said Johnny in a long-suffering voice and pushed the keys against his chest, continuing Daniel’s fantasy in which the two of them were still teens and Johnny needed to be macho in order to accept him taking charge of the shiny red car he used to drive back then, instead of the shitty dodge caravan he’d semi-stolen from him and kept.

He was smiling minutely as he did so, palm warm against Daniel’s sternum. Daniel reached up and held his hands over Johnny’s; also part of the fantasy – he needed the keys after all – but mainly he just wanted to keep him there a second longer.

Johnny’s gaze flickered down, back up. Held his own. They were never gonna get out of here at this rate. “Keys, Lawrence,” said Daniel, semi-jokingly, and Johnny complied, removing his hand so the keys dropped into Daniel’s open palms.

“Whatever you say, LaRusso.” He got in on the passenger side without another word, leaving Daniel outside for a second.

_Guess I just didn’t wanna go home tonight._

_I’m going for a drive. Wanna come?_

Daniel had never imagined exactly what could’ve happened afterwards, assuming Johnny would ever have said yes to his unspoken proposition in the first place. Except now he had and that _afterwards_ was going to happen after all, only a few years late.

He glanced towards the dojo. “You ever think this was gonna happen, Miyagi? Better late than never right? … Got any bets on what you think’s coming next?”

Johnny leaned over and honked the horn, making Daniel jump and then throw up his arms in exasperation. He sighed as Johnny dissolved into cackles, and walked to the car. “Guess you’re about to find out,” he mumbled and got in on the other side.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally thinking about how to make this from Amanda's POV, but unfortunately I suffer from chronic but-what-if-canon-directly-disputes-that-later-itis (which is fine if canon states something I utterly disagree with or if canon ends and the playground is officially Open for me, but not when I just don't know yet). 
> 
> I feel like there have been a few hints that next seasons we'll be given a little backstory for Amanda (and more for Carmen, which means I can finally start looking into writing her too). It's not so much that I wouldn't invent something, so much as this fic - and a lot of what I write in general - likes to incorporate explorations of the past and how they're affecting a character's present, which... we don't know anything about her past yet, unfortunately. 
> 
> More fortunately I read her and Daniel as generally quite in sync when he's not surprising her by pulling yet another dark karate rival out of his closet or slowly spooling at the edges of his perfect façade, so some of the descriptors I had been writing purely from her perspective were inferred to and understood by him. 
> 
> I'm surprised that I haven't seen the words Ménage A Trois thrown around for these three. As much as I like reading fics with an up-to-date open-marriaged LaRusso couple, I generally think they're not Quite as hip with the times in terms of words like "polyamory" as they might become once their kids figure out they've got a new raccoon boyfriend raiding the fridge at night, especially if Some Of Them (cough Johnny and Daniel cough) don't even know that bisexuality doesn't end at marriage/once you've slept with a certain amount of women, as per newer understandings. The amount of 40+ yr old men I've heard speak about this is frankly fascinating.
> 
> Quotes are a mix of some stuff I read off script, taken from the KK3 novel, and of course end of KK3 - yeah, I said as canon as I could possibly get, so for me that ended up meaning something like Johnny picking Miyagi off the ground definitely couldn't be in this, but a little bit of text that was written by official creators and could've been said by the characters as long as they don't fuck with movie-canon is fair game for me - especially if they make things S A D.
> 
> Anyway this got long - let me know your emotions, if you've gottem (no stress).


	4. Run To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, the end of my first little multichapter thing for this fandom!
> 
> How long can I make a single wished-for car-drive last? Four chapters it turns out - I'm nothing if not dedicated in exploring one little thing with as much detail as possible, but they are at last going for that drive, so strap in!

Baby, sometimes I feel like dyin'  
Drivin' while I'm closin' my eyes  
Movin' in and out of hidin'  
Tryin' to catch some truth in my life  
Watchin' your stars in your moonlight  
Come tumblin' down from the sky  
Take it now

I'm gonna run to you  
I'm gonna come to you  
I wanna find you  
In everything that I do  
I'm gonna run to you  
I'm gonna count on you  
I'm gonna follow  
Baby, what else can I do?

_Run To You // Roxette_

__________________________________________

Despite his initial relief that he clearly wasn’t about to get kicked out of their lives for good – going by Amanda’s more than polite reaction to seeing him – he quickly reverted to a tense awkwardness after they’d left the dojo and it became clear that Daniel wasn’t going anywhere that he knew about. He could tell there was a point behind Daniel’s offer to drive somewhere (sounding so much like the offer he’d pictured a thousand times in his head that he was still wondering if he was actually dreaming all of this up), but he couldn’t figure out what the hell it was.

Best case scenario had already been arrived at: He hadn’t wrecked their marriage and neither Daniel nor Amanda had punched him in the face and told him to get the fuck out of there. So there must be something more to all of this. Whatever it was, Daniel wasn’t saying, leaving Johnny to try not to crawl out of his skin or stare too much at him while he drove.

“Shit should’ve got you a water or something,” said Daniel suddenly. “When did you last hydrate?”

“Seriously?” said Johnny – he’d broken the silence with _that?_

“What?”

“Can you just…”

“Just what?”

No matter what he said he knew he’d be sounding whiny, so he stayed quiet. Daniel exhaled audibly, which only made it worse. For someone Johnny couldn’t get out of his mind, he really was an annoying little man, with his _disappointed_ sighs and soft _Johnny’s_ and insistence on making things _work_ all the time. That need for everything to be perfect. Johnny wasn’t perfect.

“You know,” said Daniel after a moment, “there’s nothing wrong with someone taking care of you. It doesn’t have to come with caveats.”

He could’ve laughed at that. _Yeah right, when not?_ But he knew Daniel was right and he didn’t want to argue for the sake of arguing. Too tired. Head growing too sore. And Daniel was trying, so he wanted to try, which meant staying quiet and looking down at his fingers instead of at Daniel’s face periodically glowing every time they passed a light.

It wasn’t that Johnny didn’t want to talk, but he had no idea where to begin. Everything was too fragile to touch with words – what did Daniel want from him now? What had he and Amanda said to each other? What were they going to do? Where did Johnny fit?

“So, uh…” said Daniel, starting again for the third time, because Johnny was making this harder for the both of them. _Sorry man, you’re the talker, not me._ “What’d you do while I was talking with Mandy?”

“Uh… having a conversation with Miyagi,” he admitted. “You know, the picture,” he added quickly, because that maybe sounded a bit less insane. “Looks like it’s gonna start moving sometimes.”

“Ha, yeah,” said Daniel, smiling. “I talk to him all the time.”

“Of course you do,” said Johnny without any venom.

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing, just. About my day. I went to one of those AA meetings… didn’t go inside though…” He didn’t dare check to see what Daniel’s expression must be. There, he’d said it. Miyagi would be happy.

“How about I drive you next time?” said Daniel, without the judgement Johnny had expected to hear. “If you wanna try again.”

Johnny nodded. “Sure.” Then added: “Thanks,” because he owed him that at least.

“What else did you talk with him about?” said Daniel, thankfully changing the subject before it became too much like one of those chick-flicks where people needed to talk about everything all the time. Could cry about this later – maybe at one of those meetings if they managed to break him.

“Not much. I never got to thank him for saving my life. Weird sometimes to be in his dojo when the last time I saw him was then.”

“I think he knew you were kinda busy at the time, if it helps. And he never expected thank yous, that wasn’t why he…” Johnny looked over to him again as he trailed off. His hands had tightened around the steering wheel, and a multitude of tiny expressions passed over his face before he said, calm and quiet: “I never got to say… so much. Guess that’s what you wanna avoid when someone dies, right? Having things you never said.”

“Guess so,” said Johnny, thinking suddenly about Laura Lawrence and the emptiness after she’d gone that nothing had been able to fill. But he’d never known what would’ve been the right thing to say to her to get her out of there. If he’d known he might’ve said it. Maybe if he’d promised to be a better son, or gone to college, or made more of an effort, or… _don’t go down that road again._ “Hey, uh… sorry for your loss.”

Daniel smiled to him, sincere and worryingly wobbly. “Thanks. You know, think this is what he would’ve wanted, if that’s worth anything. Not repeating the same mistakes of the past, well… not all the time.”

“Just making brand new ones.”

Daniel laughed and Johnny categorized it. Being the person who made him laugh was… it was something. Almost overwhelming. His gaze returned to his hands, fidgeting. He could do this.

“I’m not gay,” he said at last. Good. That was settled. In case there were any doubts.

“Didn’t think you were.”

“And you’re…? Staying with Amanda?”

“Yeah, thank god.”

Johnny breathed out. See, that wasn’t so hard. It was exactly what he’d been expecting and it didn’t hurt too bad. But that was that then, wasn’t it? Returning to his original question: why keep on driving? “You’re not taking me somewhere they won’t find the body, are you?” he joked weakly.

“What?”

Huh, not on the same page somewhere. “Because... it’s done. We said what needed to be said. No hurt feelings, everything’s fine. Can just forget about it and move on.”

Daniel abruptly turned over to the side of the road, making Johnny cling to the dashboard in panic. He stopped the car there, leaving the engine running so that he could turn towards him fully.

“Daniel, _wha_ -?”

“- I’m gonna ask you a question and trust you not to freak out and run, okay?” When Johnny didn’t immediately agree, he put a hand on his shoulder: “Okay?”

Johnny nodded.

“Did you like kissing me?”

“Did I…? Yea- I, I mean, sure-” _fuck,_ he’d been less caught off guard the first time he’d kissed a girl – hell, he’d been less of a fucking sap the first time he’d kissed a guy, but he’d also been so drunk he couldn’t remember how much of it had even happened. “- _look,”_ he managed to say decisively, grounding himself, “- I’m not getting between you and your wife, you don’t have to – I don’t know – think about making a choice or letting me down easy or anything. But if you’re asking, yeah, yeah it was pretty good. I guess. For a, for a guy…” Not quite the strong landing he’d hoped for, but point made nonetheless.

“So it was pretty good?” asked Daniel, looking like he was holding back a smile.

That rankled. Johnny was pouring his damn heart out and Daniel was _smiling_ at him? “Yeah, it was pretty good, but maybe warn someone next time you’re gonna turn his whole world around-” he blurted out before he could stop himself, voice rising in defence.

“- Johnny-” said Daniel.

“- _What?”_

“I’m gonna turn your whole world around,” he said and kissed him again.

It was different now. Daniel wasn’t doing something instinctive, wasn’t out of his mind – at least, Johnny didn’t think he was – wasn’t confused or reacting to some other kind of emotion, or… Johnny didn’t know, but this was different. More like a question, more like this one was for Johnny to make a decision on and maybe if his brain was more tuned in he’d have thought it through more, but Daniel’s lips were soft and he was barely wearing anything, so when Johnny placed a hand on his waist it took absolutely no effort at all to nudge his top up and stroke warm skin, and then he was pushing forward and that was a kind of answer, right? Definitely not a _no._ Definitely wanted to touch him more, slide his hand to all kinds of places he usually only felt over the top of his training gear during sessions, definitely wanted more than that -

Daniel jammed an elbow against the car horn and set it off, making them both jump out of their seats before collapsing back in surprised fits of laughter. “ _Fuck,”_ Daniel breathed out from his side, closing his eyes like he was too amazed to keep them open.

Had Johnny done that to him?

His lips were wet, but Johnny didn’t lean forwards again. _Strike First_ mentality didn’t feel right in this one precise moment in time, surprisingly. He just wanted to look at him, knowing Daniel didn’t mind, knowing Daniel wanted him to look.

“… yeah,” he said, at a loss for words once more, but this time for entirely different reasons. Something he hadn’t even noticed before grew lighter in his chest. It was easier to breathe all of a sudden. Even so, he needed to be sure: “Amanda, she… she’s okay with this?”

Daniel nodded. “Enthusiastically okay,” he added, helpfully. He opened his eyes, momentarily letting them flick to Johnny, before he put his hands back on the steering wheel like a man doing his best to stay on track. “Okay. It’s not far now,” he said, determinedly, and began to drive again.

The silence returned, but it was no longer hard to live with. It was just filled with the surrealness of pre-dawn roads and post-tired possibilities, and ideas Johnny had long ago stopped entertaining.

“You know what,” he said, without thinking, “used to have dreams about this.”

“Dreams about…?”

“No, not dreams,” he said quickly. “Uh. Not a dream. Something that’s not a dream, but…”

“Like a… fantasy?”

“No. Just… forget it.” God, he’d just had this man’s tongue down his throat while practically sober, why was this harder to deal with than that?

Daniel, of course, didn’t forget it. “So these not-dreams… about driving?”

_Wanna go for a drive, Johnny? Yeah, I know a place._

“… Yeah. Was… back in our final year. Susan’s party, you remember?” Daniel turned to look at him suddenly, doe-eyes wide with surprise for some reason. “Eyes on the road,” said Johnny, gruffly, because those eyes were messing with his ability to focus. Sure, Daniel was older now, but the brown of those eyes stayed the exact same. Like they’d gone back in time.

“Yeah, I remember,” said Daniel, turning back to the road. Johnny did the same. Still dark, but the faintest bits of light were beginning to paint the sky, make the silhouette of the pavement that much clearer.

He found talking to the road easier, like it already knew this story, even if it had never actually happened outside of his head: “I used to think I could’ve traded some weed for a ride, since we were both done with the party. Your car or mine, kinda… not sure about that one. Mine was more badass, but you might’ve preferred yours. And uh, yeah… we’d drive up somewhere.”

“And do what?”

The road knew. Maybe in some other Universe it really had happened and he was just telling him a memory. “Watch the sunrise. Smoke. Talk. Other stuff.”

Daniel laughed unexpectedly, distracting Johnny from cringing too hard at _other stuff._

“What?” he asked.

“You wanted to take me to a place to smoke weed? _That’s_ your dream?”

“Fuck you,” said Johnny, but he said it with a smile.

Daniel continued to laugh. “Alright and what after that? What’d we talk about?”

“So we… I mean, first of all we were at the party and you’d just seen that girl slap me and asked why I wanted to head out with her. I told you I didn’t want to go home... was hoping you’d ask me then -”

“What?” said Daniel, looking over again, this time accidentally yanking the wheel with him and jerking them to the side, before he got it back under control.

“ _Jesus_ LaRusso, the road!”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” said Daniel, waving his hand dismissively, “I just… what you said. It… it doesn’t matter right now, keep going.”

“If I hurl in the car it’s your fault,” grumbled Johnny, trying to find the thread of what he’d been saying again.

“You tell me if that’s about to happen or I’m gonna make you walk back. We’re nearly there anyway.” He turned up a gravelly path and Johnny thought he might actually vomit for a moment, mostly convinced that Daniel wouldn’t leave him behind if he did, probably clean him up and fuss, seeing as this was Johnny’s shit excuse for a ride and not Daniel’s precious car. Best not to risk it though. Mood-killer for sure.

He kept quiet until they parked. Just an unremarkable hilltop, but once he’d caught his breath and followed Daniel (he couldn’t help but notice the slight limp that had been growing more pronounced over the last few months) to the edge, he saw that it overlooked hazy disappearing buildings and the very beginnings of sunlight peaking over the horizon.

“This is where I drove to on that night actually,” said Daniel, keeping his gaze forward and speaking as if it was just any other conversation. “Uh. I actually did think about asking you to come with me when you said that. Weird coincidence right?”

It was like he’d been sucker-punched. His chest and throat were going tight, and he felt less like this was just something he’d imagined once upon a time and more like he’d wandered into something real. If he turned his head now Daniel would be seventeen years old, stuck in that brace. He didn’t dare turn.

“So… what’d we talk about?” asked Daniel again.

“Nothing to begin with. Just stupid things. I asked you shit like if your mom bought your shirts for you and you said yeah actually, what’s your excuse -” Daniel huffed out a laugh, making it easier for Johnny to continue, a little more animated, trusting himself to look at him without any unwanted emotions welling up, “- had a lot of different scenarios, you know. One in which I said it looked like you were making Ali happy, another time where we didn’t talk about that. You asked me why I didn’t wanna go home and sometimes I told you – not all the time, depended on, you know… how I was feeling. So sometimes I might tell you about my mom… she was having a tough time. But most times I just wanted to talk. And uh, in the end I’d say sorry… for the leg. It wasn’t honorable.”

“And then what?” Daniel said, soft smile on those lips that had willingly kissed his own _twice_ in a night. He’d wrapped his arms around himself, just in his shitty old workout tank top and shorts. Like this he’d completely dropped all that Daniel LaRusso Salesman And Family Man shtick and Johnny liked him more for it, in the same way he liked him better in a gi.

“You don’t usually let the cold get to you,” said Johnny.

“It’s not even cold,” said Daniel by way of answer.

Johnny sighed and removed his shirt. Had a couple of stains on it, but it’d do. Daniel looked from it to him and back again and then took it without comment (a surprise), rolling up the sleeves when he’d got it on to make it more presentable (not a surprise).

“Thanks,” he finally said. The shirt removed ten years from him.

“Yeah, well… looks better on you than those shitty suits you’re wearing these days.”

“ _Hey,_ that’s for work, people expect…” he looked for a word-

“Lack of personality?” Johnny filled in.

“Fuck you,” said Daniel, smiling.

“Anyway, red suits you,” he grunted out, as if telling him he looked good was more difficult than kissing him. Maybe it was. Was there a list of least to most gay behaviour – you can want to fuck a guy, but holding hands in public is too far? Did Daniel even want to do either of those things?

Johnny didn’t know how to navigate these kinds of questions. With chicks it was easier: You attracted to each other? Cool, done, bang. With guys – with _Daniel –_ it was like right at the beginning when he’d wanted to ask Ali out, except he wasn’t as worried about Daniel’s parents. Or, scratch that, thinking about it he was. His mom only knew him as the guy who’d beaten up her son a few times back in the eighties, Johnny doubted she was that interested in context at this point. Fair. Wasn’t the first time someone’s parents hated him. Not Ali’s parents, to be clear, they’d fucking loved him. They’d also been assholes, so their judgement had probably been shit.

“And then what?” said Daniel again. “Keep going.”

Daniel wearing his shirt suddenly felt like too much to look at while he confessed all of this: it didn’t magically turn him into his seventeen year old self, but he was more _Daniel_ somehow, like he could see him at that age again – same open face, same eyes, even if his hair was starting to thin (so was Johnny’s) and his posture was only getting shittier (and Johnny was showing the beginnings of a beer gut) and he had creases on his forehead and in the corners of his eyes and mouth (and Johnny’s back ached a lot of the time) – it was Daniel. In his shirt.

“Can’t believe we didn’t come up here when we were kids,” said Johnny. That clenching in his chest and throat was getting worse. He hadn’t cried – really cried – in so long, it hurt now, the instinct to suppress it making his whole body tense. “Things would’ve been different if we’d come up here then.”

“… Yeah,” said Daniel. “Maybe.” Johnny could tell he was thinking about his own life and felt guilty – they wouldn’t’ve had the kids, he wouldn’t have Amanda. But it wasn’t that he wanted to replace them, he wanted both, even if he frequently thought that it had been cruel to put Robby on the world in the first place when he’d never had a fighting chance, but he was still young, they’d get him back, that was as much a certainty as where they stood now, despite the odds of it being practically impossible.

Almost exactly like in his dream, but not quite.

And then what, Daniel had asked – _Johnny of the dream fidgeted, even though he felt like an idiot for it: “Hey. Sorry. For the leg. And everything else.”_

_Daniel looked surprised, but they were both a little high and the conversation so far had been good. It was just the words themselves that were an unexpected plus. “Thanks. Sorry for… the face. Both times.” He grinned._

“ _You’re not sorry at all,” said Johnny, without any_ _anger_ _, making Daniel’s grin bloom into a full-on smile. “Really is lethal,” Johnny added, before he could stop himself._

“ _What is?”_

“ _Your smile.”_ _Because if he’d already dug this hole he might as well make it deeper._

_Daniel’s surprise was back. A satisfying look on his face, mainly because it gave Johnny a win, but also because his eyes went wide like – “fucking bambi,” Johnny snorted._

“ _Hey,_ _at_ _least I don’t look like a swimsuit model,” parried Daniel, getting into his space and nudging him._

“ _You think so?” said Johnny, not backing down._

_Daniel swallowed (but he’d deny it forever). “You know what I mean.”_

“ _That a bad thing?”_

“… _no.”_

_It varied here too – sometimes Daniel started, sometimes Johnny – usually some mix of both. Point was that the first time this happened, Johnny_ _had_ _snapped his eyes open and pretended there was nothing to it – kissing Daniel meant nothing, hell, he hadn’t even kissed him in real life, it was some mixed up teenage hormonal thing, like he’d had before_ _about boys like Bobby_ _and stomped_ _o_ _ut_ _before_ _anything_ _dangerous_ _had_ _happened – but when it kept going in this direction (when he kept pushing it in this direction), he let himself imagine the kissing properly._

_It was good, of course it was, if he was imagining it. And in later versions he had a spare blanket in the car (some vague mix of both of their cars, no_ _t_ _important)_ _which they’d been sitting on, knees up, facing the sunrise together_ _._

_They kissed and Johnny let Daniel win – truthfully he’d always kinda liked when Ali pushed him back, it was a rare scenario in which seceding some control only meant_ _more excitement_ _. Win for both_ _parties_ _._

_Besides he liked having Daniel on top of him, in between his legs. He didn’t weigh much of anything where his chest met Johnny’s,_ _but he was warm, solid, hands eager, and -_

  
  


He kissed Daniel.

It was the only way to deal with the way his whole body felt like it was on the verge of spilling over and besides, it seemed only fair to surprise Daniel while he was overthinking after the stunts he’d pulled in the dojo and the car – so that made this two points LaRusso, one point Lawrence. He’d have to even those scores out in future.

Daniel reciprocated the kiss like he’d been waiting for it. Like he’d been starving and Johnny’s post-beer-tinted lips were the only thing that could sate him. Johnny would've felt bad he hadn’t been able to brush his teeth, but fuck it, there were no perfect scenarios and they were over thirty years too late for the one he’d stopped fantasizing about a long time ago, and Daniel had started it and hadn’t made any complaints then and he wasn’t complaining now.

There were questions, but they weren’t important when they were up here – no blanket, but sex on the ground sounded like it was gonna fuck up both of their backs anyway, so there was no need for it and anyway he was happy about just this in a way he’d panic about in the future, but not right now. Right now he even stopped worrying about what this made him – the kind of guy who made out with men, occasionally had imagined more than that – right now he was just so lucky that Daniel LaRusso was holding onto him for dear life, like one of those old Hollywood movies.

Behind them the sun fully started to come up and they didn’t even see it happen. It didn’t wash away all the years, turn back time, offer them anything but warmth and a golden, honeyed reflection in Daniel’s eyes when they parted for air and he looked at Johnny.

“That’s what came next,” said Johnny.

Daniel grinned, toothy and wide. “You’re real smooth when you wanna be, Johnny Lawrence.”

“Yeah, it’s a gift,” he said and turned to head back to the car, promptly stumbling over a rock. “ _Motherf-”_

Daniel doubled over laughing. The haze of earlier cleared just like that, back to reality.

“Laugh it up Daniel _,_ I’m gonna kick your ass in training later,” Johnny grumbled.

Daniel groaned as they got in the car: “Can’t we cancel? I’ll make you and Mandy waffles instead.”

“Maybe. What’ve you got to sweeten that offer?” asked Johnny with a smirk as he closed the door behind him.

Whatever Daniel said in reply – accompanied by a roll of the eyes – was muffled by the car engine turning on, but it made Johnny laugh as Daniel turned the car around and drove them home.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are tons of things that I decided not to go into in this fic, so yay for plenty of material for other stuff. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> I just want them to get on you guys :((
> 
> I'm @variousqueerthings on tumblr - mainly a lot of cobra kai right now (surprise surprise) and I do a bit of meta and screaming sometimes.


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